Place characteristics that determine citizens’ nature experiences in urban open spaces

Urban open spaces (UOS) as everyday accessible environments are important for citizens’ nature experiences. Rich perceptions of nature reflected in emotions may facilitate a positive human–nature interaction. However, current survey methods do not capture citizens’ emotional nature perceptions. Humans’ emotional perceptions can be captured through arts-based methods such as storytelling but that has not been empirically tested in UOS. In addition, the characteristics of UOS that contribute to such perceptions are unknown. The aim was to explore citizens’ place-inspired perceptions to identify the characteristics that build positive experiences of urban nature. Therefore, UOS characteristics contributing to nature experiences were identified through citizens’ place-inspired stories. We applied digitally enabled spontaneous self-articulated in situ storytelling (DESIS storytelling) at 100 benches located in places with diverse characteristics in Espoo city in the capital region of Finland. We sampled all the 2368 digital clips of stories reflecting perceptions of the100 places. We also performed field observations about the characteristics of 22 places representative of the physical diversity and half of the clips of stories to examine the extent to which citizens’ perceptions of the places depended on the physical characteristics. The results indicated that the arts-based method of DESIS storytelling enables the capture of emotional nature experiences that acknowledge place-based characteristics, contributing to a stronger human–nature connection. Physical characteristics such as scenic views and sheltered environments tended to enrich nature experiences. Mysterious nature elements, in particular, facilitated emotional and embodied perceptions, which playing activities tended to decrease. The findings help to successfully design and manage places that enhance citizens’ connection to nature and encourage a more sustainable urban future.