Natalia Fumagalli

Employee wellbeing is increasingly investigated in relation to physical workplace environments, yet assessment approaches remain heterogeneous across disciplines and research contexts. This review examined how employee wellbeing is operationalised and assessed in real-world workplaces and how different types of measurement are used together. A combined bibliometric and systematic review was conducted using Scopus and Web of Science, and the systematic component was reported in accordance with PRISMA 2020. The bibliometric corpus comprised 306 publications, while 19 empirical studies were included in the systematic synthesis. Self-report assessment was used in all included studies (100%), physiological measurements in 36.8%, environmental measurements in 47.4%, and formal cognitive task-based assessment in 5.3%. Ten studies (52.6%) reported more than one type of measurement; nine (47.4%) included at least two types referring to the same employees or an overlapping subgroup during concurrent or explicitly linked periods. Six studies (31.6%) reported at least three types of measurement. Considerable heterogeneity was found in the constructs, instruments, and modality combinations employed. Environmental measures primarily characterised workplace conditions or exposures, whereas physiological indicators captured complementary employee responses rather than direct measures of wellbeing. The findings highlight the need for transparent assessment approaches that distinguish measures of wellbeing from contextual, physiological, environmental, and performance-related measures and clearly report how different modalities are combined.

This review examines how the hydrological performance of implemented, ground-based urban green and blue infrastructure (GBI) and nature-based solutions (NBSs) is monitored and assessed. It combines bibliometric mapping, a targeted systematic review, and an indicator crosswalk. The bibliometric dataset included 2426 publications, while the targeted review analyzed 12 empirical-monitoring articles and 7 assessment-framework publications. Empirical studies covered catchment and sewershed monitoring, practice-scale inlet–outlet monitoring, and local infiltration or media-hydraulic characterization. Frameworks instead interpreted hydrological evidence alongside broader planning, management, resilience, and governance objectives. The crosswalk compared thirteen water-related functions, of which six were shared between the two corpora. Infiltration was the only function for which the two corpora shared a closely related primary measurand, although even here they relied on different test designs and measurement resolutions. The other five shared functions corresponded functionally, but diverged in measurand, temporal basis, denominator, or comparator. The remaining seven functions were represented in one corpus only, accounting for 26 of the 66 empirical and 23 of the 42 framework indicator records.

Ecosystem services (ESs) support human well-being, but their integrated assessment in urban green spaces remains challenging, particularly at the project scale, where finer spatial resolution (tens of meters) is required. Historical parks are complex socio-ecological systems with non-linear ES interactions. This study develops a design-oriented framework to assess how restoration interventions influence regulation, maintenance, and cultural ES potential provision. Indicators derived from field surveys and established models were selected according to CICES V5.2 and adapted to ecological and cultural features of historical parks. Survey units were defined for each ES section to enable a spatially explicit comparison between current and design scenarios. A normalized scoring system was applied to evaluate category-level changes and overall interaction patterns. The framework was tested on the restoration project of Monza Park (northern Italy). Results show a marked increase in cultural and regulation services (+28% and +17%, respectively), while maintenance services exhibited a slight decrease (−3%). These trends are reflected in the Cumulative Indicator Score (CIS), indicating an overall positive balance of ES provision in the design scenario. The Design Effectiveness Score (DES) showed consistently non-negative values (DES ≥ 0), reaching maximum effectiveness in transitions to woody vegetation (DES ≈ 1). The Synergy–Trade-off Score (STS) confirmed a general increase in ES supply across all categories, with a clear prevalence of synergies over trade-offs. The proposed framework supports the data-driven, spatially explicit evaluation of design alternatives and can guide decision-making in historical park restoration.

Non-urbanized areas (NUAs), including residual urban green areas, urban parks, agricultural, natural and semi-natural areas, are a fundamental part of the green infrastructure. They are essential in sustaining life and future development, providing a series of ecosystem services (ESs) vital to human society. However, the rapid expansion of urban areas has led to a significant reduction in green spaces. Land-take, reducing available land resources, impacts ecosystem functionality, making it crucial to preserve high-quality territories and the relative ESs provided. In this context, the aim of this study was to evaluate the reduction in ESs due to the land-take having occurred in the last 20 years in the Province of Monza–Brianza, the Italian province with the highest land-take. To achieve this goal, authors used the official data of land use/cover of the Lombardy Region, with three time thresholds (T0: 1999–2003, T1: 2012–2013, T2: 2021) and applied a methodology for ESs assessment originally developed for the municipal level, adapting it to the provincial scale. The study analyzes trends in land-take and land-use changes and assesses how these changes have led to variations in ES provision. The approach involves calculating multiple indices reflecting different ESs provided by NUAs: provisioning ESs coming from agriculture, regulating ESs provided by natural resources, cultural ESs provided by landscape. Findings reveal that urban expansion has decreased provisioning ESs coming from agriculture, while ESs provided by landscape and natural resources have remained stable or improved, respectively. The natural quality index has improved due to conservation policies, despite the high land-take recorded. Anyway, although regional policies have mitigated some negative effects, the overall reduction in green spaces remains a critical issue.

Since tourism involves the movement of people, mobility and tourism are deeply interconnected, with mutual growth dynamics but also shared negative effects, such as greenhouse gas emissions. Among the wide spectrum of policies and strategies for making tourism sustainable, soft mobility has gained increasing importance, becoming more and more a widespread form of active tourism, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. A sustainable approach, aimed at maintaining a balance between economic development and environmental protection, requires greater promotion of soft mobility and integration with rail transport. To make active tourism truly sustainable, the support of the railway network, a low-emission collective transport system, is needed, allowing people to reach destinations and move between destinations, taking advantage of intermodality. This needs the improvement of the connection between the two transport systems, the creation of services for visitors, and the organization of an appropriate railway service. Within this framework, the present work defines a methodology that, starting from the analysis of the relationships between railway stations, the soft mobility network, and attractions in the surrounding territory, allows us to identify stations that could serve as intermodal hubs for connecting local resources through soft mobility, according to a priority scale defined by the Soft Mobility HUB (SMH) Index. The methodology, applied to Italian railway stations, is based on the use of GIS (Geographic Information System) and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process), allowing a rigorous, transparent, and participatory approach. The proposed model, which is replicable in other contexts, has been effective in identifying, in different scenarios, the stations most suitable for becoming hubs for soft mobility. It can serve as a support tool for decision-makers to maximize investments by focusing on stations capable to provide the greatest contribution to the development of active and diversified tourism.

(1) Background: Connectedness with Nature is a personality trait that influences our relationship with Nature. But Nature is not all the same. Wilderness is Nature in its original form, the form within which human beings have evolved as a species, while what we refer to as domesticated and urban Nature are relatively recent products of our interaction with the environment. (2) Aim: The main purpose of this study was to verify whether the individual trait “connection to Nature” influences the perception of restoration, preference for and familiarity with three types of Nature: wilderness, domesticated and urban. (3) Results: Regardless of the level of connection to Nature, wilderness is always perceived as more restorative than the domesticated or urban environment. Individuals with higher connectedness prefer wilderness more than others, and they are able to recognise the restorative value of domesticated environments more than those with medium or low levels of connectedness. Less connected individuals tend to prefer domesticated environments, although wilderness is more familiar to them. (4) Conclusions: This study shows that, despite our detachment from Nature, wilderness is the prototype of Nature, and this finding offers a plausible evolutionary explanation of solastalgia.

The rural landscape can provide a wide range of cultural ecosystem services to humans through direct and in situ interactions. The benefits provided depend on the quality of the landscape, but also on the real possibility for people to access and enjoy it. One of the best ways is to do it in a “slow” way, namely active and non-motorized, through a soft mobility network. The goals of the study are: (i) to develop a methodology to plan a soft mobility network that enhances existing infrastructures and maximizes the cultural ecosystem services provided by rural landscapes; (ii) to validate the methodology in the Alto Ferrarese territory through defining a soft mobility masterplan at the supra-municipal scale. The method is made up of three phases: analysis, with the inventory of the resources to be connected and the paths that could potentially be used; assessment, with the evaluation of the suitability of the paths to realize the soft mobility network; and planning, with the definition of the masterplan for the study area. The application resulted in a proposed network of 525.2 km, hierarchized in a primary and a secondary network, and proved that the methodology is effective to maximize the use of existing paths (81% of the proposed network), and to connect the elements of interest (98.5% of the resources are within a distance of 500 m, and 86.4% within a distance of 100 m).

In Western countries, the concepts of healthy ageing and active ageing, that is, concepts that favour health, participation, and security to increase the quality of life of older people, have become key issues. Hence, the effective design of public green spaces in urban areas is crucial, as visiting these areas encourages social relations and interactions in natural, healthy contexts. Consistent with these perspectives, existing landscape design criteria emphasise the importance of considering not only the functional and aesthetic elements, but also the ecosystemic and biophilic relationships between people and the environment, producing positive effects for both. To maximise the impact of such design criteria, proper engagement strategies are desirable, both to assign an active role to older people themselves and to inform the fine-tuning of the design process according to the specific needs of the local population. This study presents an interdisciplinary co-design method that encourages and informs a biophilic approach by describing the experiences of people in natural environments, actual and designed, through the application of attention restoration theory (ART). The case study was developed through six focus group meetings with older people for the co-design of a restorative area in a community garden in the Ortica district in Milan (Italy). Results show how the main needs expressed by participants can be classified into the ART factors of “compatibility” (a multifunctional garden), “fascination” (sense of contact with nature), and “being away” (metaphorical escape from nursing homes). The garden designed includes biophilic principles that respond to such needs, and specific links with designed elements were identified. For example, “being away” (e.g., isolation from daily routine and visual occlusion of the surroundings) and “compatibility” (e.g., pergola and aesthetic value) are the factors that include the elements that more satisfactorily answer previous needs. “Fascination” also includes many positive aspects, allowing space for improvements (e.g., more water elements, interaction with animals). Implications of the method are discussed, including the importance of subjective experience in informing design, the use of different psychological constructs to describe it, and the methodological alternatives for psychological assessment.

Growing and uncontrolled urbanization and climate change (with an associated increase in the frequency of intense meteoric events) have led to a rising number of flooding events in urban areas due to the insufficient capacity of conventional drainage systems. Nature-Based Solutions represent a contribution to addressing these problems through the creation of a multifunctional green infrastructure, both in urban areas and in the countryside. The aim of this work was to develop a methodology to define Green Infrastructure for stormwater management at the municipal level. The methodology is defined on the basis of three phases: the definition of the territorial information needed, the production of base maps, and the production of a Suitability Map. In the first phase, we define the information needed for the identification of non-urbanized areas where rainwater can potentially infiltrate, as well as areas with soil characteristics that can exclude or limit rainwater infiltration. In the second phase, we constructed the following base maps: a “map of green areas”, a “map of natural surface infiltration potential” and a “map of exclusion areas”. In phase 3, starting from the base maps created in phase 2 and using Geographical Information Systems’ (GIS) geoprocessing procedures, the “Green area compatibility map to realize Green Infrastructure”, the “map of areas not suitable for infiltration” and the final “Green Infrastructure Suitability Map” are created. This methodology should help municipal authorities to set up Green Infrastructure Suitability Maps as a tool for land-use planning.