Water, Health and Well-being (Blue Health)

Project Team: JHI and Heriot Watt University

Aims:

Blue Health will help CREW deliver its vision of creating new capacity by ensuring that emerging international knowledge and perspectives are available to the user community through:

• Raising stakeholder awareness of the state of knowledge of the role of water in relation to well-being (e.g. a cause of stress, or a factor influencing psychological restoration),
• Collating, and reporting on, the state-of-art in evidence of the role of water in relation to well-being, and
• Engaging in dialogue with relevant stakeholders to identify links across sectors in relation to water and well-being.

Background and policy/stakeholder relevance:

Public policy and programmes such as the strategic objectives of the Scottish Government of a greener and healthier Scotland, seek to deliver improvements in people’s surroundings and the environment. Such objectives include policies relating to sustainable development Ecosystems provide services that are the foundation of human well-being, understanding the later has relatively little in terms of a tested evidence base. Gaps in such an evidence base are being addressed through RESAS supported research and in wider international activities. However, whereas much has been published on the importance of water (sea, lochs/lakes, rivers, waterfalls) as a characteristic of the landscape to which people respond positively, relatively little is published on its potential role in relation to its restorative values, and positive contribution to well-being and mental health.

Many of the underlying determinants of inequalities in health and well-being are environmental, with associations between health and access to green or open spaces. However, relationships between quality and extent of green and open space, the role of water in such areas, people’s proximity to and use of such areas, and health outcomes, remain to be quantified appropriately and the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood.

Approach:

1. A first round of engaging with stakeholders to scope the bounds of the activity with respect to water environments, health and issues to consider.
2. A review of evidence relating to water, and mental health and well-being, on the topics of:
   
   1. water (inland and coastal, rural and urban) with respect to stress reduction;
   2. water as a threat (e.g. flood risk) and cause of stress;
   3. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) and wastewater;
   4. water quality interactions with those of well-being.
3. A second round of engagement with stakeholders to assess the significance of findings to current and upcoming policy or strategic interests at Scottish or local levels (e.g. in relation to options appraisal, planning and implementation of the Land Use Strategy or delivery on local authority Single Outcome Agreements).
4. Preparation and publication of findings for access via VCREW (e.g. content for Frequently Asked Questions – on health and water), KnowledgeScotland 2 (e.g. science brief), and other media as agreed with stakeholders and HEI partners.

Outputs:

Outcomes:

HEI partners with relevant expertise will contribute in the following ways:

1. Lead the production of a report on restorative advantages of well-designed SUDS, and the physical attributes of SUDS that instil a feeling of well-being.
2. Lead reviews on disadvantaged rural communities and quality of private drinking water supplies, perception of quality of private drinking water supplies.
3. Participate in a stakeholder workshop on water, health and well-being.

Contact:

David Miller (JHI)