Smell from nature and reduction of human stress in urban environments

The aim is to identify smells from nature that reduce human stress and implement the findings in urban settings.There is a lack of in-situ perceptions of natural smells as stress reducers in cities, how natural smells contribute to stress reduction is vaguely studied, knowledge of smell and wellbeing is limited to a few plant species, and linkages to memory and smell from nature are limited.

Further, present management, design and establishment of urban green areas biases towards visual features although humans perceive their surroundings with all senses, including smell.Our objectives are to conduct in-situ surveys of urban settings asking respondents about smell perception, provide psychophysiological experiments measuring stress reduction of natural smells through heart rate variability and skin conductance, to examine if natural smell increase memory, and if there are “thresholds” where nature smell compensate for negative visual features, negative sounds and non-natural smells.We will implement our findings together with stakeholders and a reference group by establishing plants in three parks, one focusing on smell and the others on multisensory.

The ultimate goal is to reduce human stress syndromes, contribute to rehabilitation from anosmia (loss of smell) and create positively perceived urban environments.Moreover, this project will provide a basis for research connected to the multisensory integration (sight, sound and smell) of biodiversity and urban settings.