The starting point of this tool is to have urban planners think about how people use different spaces in the city, rather than undertake a major assessment.
The BlueHealth Toolbox provides the means to incorporate robust evidence on blue spaces’ benefit for people’s well-being and health into planning and design of projects. The BlueHealth Toolbox comprises six tools that work at different spatial scales to collect social and environmental data on blue spaces: (a) Environmental Assessment Tool (BEAT), (b) Decision Support tool (DST), (c) Behavioural Assessment Tool (BBAT), (d) Community Level Survey (BCLS), (e) PPGIS (Public Participatory Geographic Information System), and (f) International Survey (BIS).
The tools provide an assessment of existing blue spaces that improve health with minimal cost to the environment, and so inform future management.
Free keywords
Urban space, well-being, public health, blue spaces, landscape planning
Readiness for use
Tool broadly used
Applications
The toolbox has been implemented from 2020 onwards in the case studies Plymouth (UK), Tallinn and Tartu (Estonia), Barcelona (Spain) and Warsaw (Poland).
Strengths and weaknesses, comparative added value to other similar tools
Strengths:
(+) Clear guidance is available for each of the tools, including information on when and where which tool to use.
(+) The tools complement each other.
Weaknesses:
(-) The toolbox is created for urban areas, it is not so useful in rural areas.
Input(s)
For all other tools it is only necessary to know the details of the planned interventions to fill in the surveys and questions with the information.
Most tools are online surveys or interactive step approaches that enable the user to collect and integrate data into the assessment platform. The data collection forms are clear, but many have further questions.
Output(s)
The tools result in maps, scores and other data on how people use blue (water) spaces. The tools generate information on how people perceive blue spaces (i.e. of safety, quality etc.), and how blue spaces – and blue space interventions – might affect the wellbeing of individuals and communities.
Below is an example of the BIS tool which shows spatial associations between health and residential proximity to lakes in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Replicability: Cost/effort for (new) usage
The tools are readily available to be used in other regions in Europe. The users decide themselves if they want to use one or more tools and the tool creators recommend to base the decision on 3 core considerations: (1) The spatial scale relevant to the effects of an intervention; (2) The timing of an intervention evaluation; and (3) The population that may be impacted by an intervention.
Materials or other support available
Toolbox guidance for users, and each of the tools is also explained in videos
Website and maintenance
Links to all six individual tools can be found here: BlueHealth Toolbox - BlueHealth
Contact
bluehealth2020
exeter [dot] ac [dot] uk
Associated project(s)
The BlueHealth project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 666773.