Other research has shed light on the processes that could engender nature-health associations. The epidemiological research thus supports an integrated approach to societal sustainability that addresses its psychological, social, and cultural aspects together with its ecological aspects (Griggs et al., 2013 United Nations, 2015). Such findings encourage efforts to ensure ample possibilities for contact with nature while trying to satisfy other wants and needs (Coutts, 2016 Lee, Williams, Sargent, Williams, & Johnson, 2015 Lindal & Hartig, 2015). Other studies have described similarly salutary values of living near and visiting seashores and other blue spaces (Wheeler, White, Stahl-Timmins, & Depledge, 2012 White et al., 2010, 2019 White, Alcock, Wheeler, & Depledge, 2013). Many epidemiological studies have found more green space near an urban residence to be associated with societally significant outcomes like less psychological distress (Astell-Burt, Feng, & Kolt, 2013), better cognitive development (Dadvand et al., 2015), and lower risk of future psychiatric disorders SeeAlso SeeAlsoMental illness (Engemann et al., 2019). 1Īs a counterweight to this trend, research has arguably made it more difficult to disregard arguments for protecting natural settings as public health resources. Populations will continue to grow and concentrate in urban areas over the coming decades (United Nations, 2019), and this will drive further loss of possibilities for experiencing nature insofar as other wants and needs continue to receive higher priorities. Yet, arguments based on such beliefs have often failed to stop the construction of housing, hospitals, streets, and other structures that serve wants and needs aside from contact with nature. Their alarm reflects beliefs that the experiences they and their children have in nature contribute to their health. KeywordsĬonsider first a broad context for this work: Many people today express alarm at the loss of possibilities for experiencing nature. The extensions made here raise important considerations for nature preservation efforts, urban planning, health promotion strategies, and ways of thinking about human–nature relations. In closing, I consider ways to work with the general framework and further develop the narrative about nature, restoration, and health. These call attention to the restoration of resources as held within closer relationships and as held collectively by members of a population. Extending the framework, I put forward two additional theories. I then discuss the currently conventional theoretical narrative about restorative effects of nature experience and organize some of its components in a general framework for restorative environments theory. I first set out the basic premises of the restoration perspective and consider how it has come to have particular relevance for understanding the salutary values now commonly assigned to nature experience. In this chapter, I start from the restoration perspective in showing ways to extend theory and research concerned with the benefits of nature experience. The restoration perspective on human adaptation offers a broad view of relations between environment and health however, it remains underutilized as a source of insight for nature-and-health studies.