key: cord-0844422-qiys0rzs
authors: Yap, Kathleen K. L.; Soh, Malcolm C. K.; Sia, Angelia; Chin, Wei Jun; Araib, Sophianne; Ang, Wei Ping; Tan, Puay Yok; Er, Kenneth B. H.
title: The influence of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the demand for different shades of green
date: 2022-02-14
journal: People Nat (Hoboken)
DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10304
sha: ca1d9b331871e872a93fd11aa7a74ca7269b8f71
doc_id: 844422
cord_uid: qiys0rzs

1. COVID‐19 has heightened the dependence of urban dwellers on cultural ecosystem services provided by urban green spaces (UGS), specifically in regard to the provision of recreational opportunities, and psychological and physical health benefits arising from their use. 2. As different types and levels of cultural ecosystem services are provided by different types of UGS, people may seek out different UGS to satisfy personal needs over various phases of COVID‐19 mobility restrictions imposed by cities. We report on a study that took advantage of the different phases of COVID‐19 mobility restrictions to assess the demand for and perception of different types of UGS in Singapore. 3. The study utilised four datasets to compare demand for and visitorship patterns of UGS before the pandemic (Pre‐Circuit Breaker), the duration of the strictest mobility restrictions (Circuit Breaker), and after the measures were relaxed (Post‐Circuit Breaker). We used Google Search trends as a proxy for UGS demand, Google mobility data for an overview of population visitorship trends, visitor counts for granular insights on actual visitorship trends, and qualitative data on perception of parks by park visitors after restrictions eased. Parks were categorised as manicured and less manicured UGS for analysis. 4. Search interest for UGS overall fell by more than 50% from during Circuit Breaker but the post‐Circuit Breaker levels exceeded pre‐Circuit Breaker, with a 70.9% increase for less manicured UGS compared to 20.8% for manicured UGS. This corroborated with Google mobility and visitor counts, which showed a steep decrease in park use followed by a rapid increase in the same periods, and with increased visitorship in the less manicured UGS. The perception study also showed that more than 50% of respondents reported visiting parks that they have never visited before, and there was a greater appreciation and use of UGS after the pandemic and preference for less manicured and more naturalistic landscapes. 5. The pandemic has heightened the demand for cultural ecosystem services provided by UGS. Our study showed that this demand is not uniform across different types of UGS, with an increase visitorship and preference for less manicured green spaces. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

The emergence of COVID-19 has impacted the world on an unprecedented scale. The fear of infection, coupled with disruptive lockdown measures introduced by governments worldwide, has disrupted the livelihood and lifestyle of urban populations and led to increasing reports on the negative psychological impacts of COVID-19 on urban dwellers (Passavanti et al., 2021; Xiong et al., 2020) . These impacts often manifest as higher than normal rates of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder among the general population (Giuntella et al., 2021) . This has led the American Psychological Association to describe COVID-19 as an epidemiological and psychological crisis, with attendant calls for appropriate government responses (American Psychological Association, 2020).

Against this backdrop, there is also heightened awareness of the role of urban nature in mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 on health and well-being. Studies globally suggest that the pandemic has sparked an increased demand for urban green spaces (UGS). Kleinschroth and Kowarik (2020) observed a sharp spike in interest for outdoor recreation after travel restrictions were imposed, with proportionally higher Google search trends for outdoor-related activities (e.g. hiking), compared to other leisure activities (e.g. shopping). People's desire to visit UGS did not diminish in areas with restricted public access to parks (Zhu & Xu, 2020) . Even in cities where UGS was not readily accessible, people were willing to travel longer distances to utilise green spaces outside their immediate living environment (Ugolini et al., 2020) . Increases in visits were also accompanied by reports of the perceived importance of UGS (Geng et al., 2020) , especially as an avenue to reduce stress (Grima et al., 2020) and strengthen resilience and support mental health (Aerts et al., 2021) .

Such widespread observations of a sudden shift in social behaviours following onset of the pandemic highlight the importance of the relationship between people and their environment, in particular, that of urban nature, which is mediated by cultural ecosystem services (CES). While the various tangible benefits of UGS have been well documented under the umbrella of urban ecosystem services (Gómez-Baggethun et al., 2013) , CES are relatively less understood, but yet recognised to be equally integral to pursuits of urban sustainability and liveability (Andersson et al., 2015) . CES, as the intangible and non-material benefits provided by nature, are theoretically more challenging to quantify (Fish et al., 2016) as it is highly dependent on the cultural background of distinct communities, as well as the environment (Hirons et al., 2016; Plieninger et al., 2013) .

The studies cited above (Geng et al., 2020; Grima et al., 2020; Ugolini et al., 2020) provided significant evidence that CES has become more valuable to people during the pandemic. This is reflected in the increase visitorship to UGS and perception of the importance and benefits of UGS (Ma et al., 2021; Venter et al., 2020) . While UGS have been shown to be valuable in most socio-cultural context, these studies do not explore whether different types of UGS meet different needs of urban dwellers in a unique situation like the pandemic. We should expect that the type of UGS would confer a different extent of effect to its users and reciprocate varying responses.

For example, the size of forest in urban areas affects the relationship between green space and mental health (Akpinar et al., 2016) . Thus, do people seek out different types of green spaces during the pandemic, and how might such an understanding inform the management and planning of UGS for cities?

We used the opportunity presented by the imposition of different levels of mobility restrictions in Singapore during the pandemic to address these questions by undertaking a study that combined different data sources. Singapore is an interesting case for such a study for various reasons. First, it is widely regarded as a wellplanned and green city (Tan et al., 2013) , with a high level of park usage (Petrunoff et al., 2021) , and a recent report suggests that Singapore residents do not have an extinction of experience with nature . In other words, Singapore residents are generally not deprived of contacts with nature. Given the already high baseline level of park use and exposure to nature, it is interesting to examine whether COVID-10 mobility restrictions have affected park visitorship and preference. Second, as a high-density, compact tropical city, a study on Singapore contrasts with the large majority of studies on UGS uses during COVID-19 that have been undertaken in temperate climates. As geography, in addition to socio-economic context, is known to influence CES from UGS (Ho et al., 2005; Ono et al., 2021) , results of studies in temperate regions may not be transferrable to Singapore. For instance, we note that the increase in park use after the onset of COVID in temperate countries (after January 2020) coincided with warmer temperatures and can possibly be a confounding factor in understanding UGS visitorship patterns and demands during COVID-19 (Rice & Pan, 2021) . A study on Singapore can provide insights on differences in green spaces usage and preferences across socio-economic, cultural and climatic contexts. 5. The pandemic has heightened the demand for cultural ecosystem services provided by UGS. Our study showed that this demand is not uniform across different types of UGS, with an increase visitorship and preference for less manicured green spaces.

COVID-19, cultural ecosystem services, nature preferences, park usage patterns, urban green space

The primary objective of the study is to assess the relative demand for and visitorship pattern of Singapore to manicured and less manicured parks over different phases of mobility restriction, with the aim of developing insights on how different types of urban green spaces may satisfy different needs of the population. We define manicured parks as parks that have most of its area covered with frequently maintained greenery and built park amenities. Conversely, less manicured parks refer to parks that have most of its area covered with greenery that is not maintained, that is, with higher quantum of natural habitats and spontaneous vegetation, and more naturalistic looking landscapes. We first examined the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions in Singapore on the travel mobility using data provided by Google community mobility data. We then assessed the interest levels of UGS through the use of Google search trends and compared this with actual visitorship to selected parks before and during the pandemic. To obtain a qualitative understanding of the trends, we conducted a survey of park visitors to assess their motivations to visit UGS during the pandemic. The study showed that 63.2% of respondents reported having visited parks that they have never visited before, and 'exercise', 'appreciate landscape', 'spend time with others' and 'watch wildlife' being the most cited reasons for visiting parks.

Like many other cities, Singapore imposed strict restrictions from 7 April 20 to 1 June 20, termed the 'Circuit Breaker', to control the outbreak of COVID-19. During this period, other than essential services, citizens were mandated to work from home and social activities severely curtailed with the closure of retail malls and shops, restaurants, sports recreation spaces and attractions. Citizens could only leave their homes for essential activities such as to seek medical attention, get food and exercise. These restrictions remained until 18 June 2020. Although parks remained open during the Circuit Breaker, there were several restrictions. For example, exercise in groups was disallowed-people could only use parks to exercise alone or with one other household member. Recreational activities, such as picnicking or ball games, were prohibited. Open spaces and recreational facilities such as lawns, beaches, and playgrounds were closed to deter social gatherings. Carpark facilities in parks were also closed to encourage visitors to choose nearby parks over those that were further. Visitorship to parks was monitored daily, and entry was denied if crowd levels were observed to be high.

To identify whether the pandemic had any influence on interest in parks in Singapore, we analysed Google search trends between January to September 2020 to observe shifts in interest for specific parks. Google Trends have been used by studies as a proxy for market interest to predict demand, even for visits to attractions (Höpken et al., 2019) . Google search trend is a useful indicator to predict consumer trends as it informs how the proportional number of searches changes over time. Here, we used it to monitor and compare the effect of the mobility restrictions on interest in parks across Singapore.

In all, 44 parks that were identified to serve the population beyond the immediate neighbourhood were selected and their names keyed into the Google Search web interface (http://trends.google. com) to obtain search trend data between 5 January and 3 October 2020. All searches for park names were keyed in as a 'topic' query and not a 'search term' query, as the former retrieves searches that refer to the same topic, in this case a location, whereas the latter retrieves related searches with similar words (Google Trends, n.d.) .

After searching, we checked the top five related queries for each park name to ensure that the queries are referring to the park and not referencing other locations with similar names. Then the trend data of 9 months were downloaded as a 7-day value. Of the 44 parks, 26 parks were removed from the analysis of which three parks were not recognised as 'topics' and 23 parks returned with insufficient data to show related queries, due to a low volume of search results.

As the Google search trends provide values based on proportion on a scale of 100, all the searches were standardised on the same scale using the 'compare' function.

Parks were categorised into two broad classifications of manicured and less manicured park based on their predominant type of landscape (Table 1) . Manicured parks are defined as green spaces that are dominated by frequently maintained ornamental green spaces, with natural habitats and/or spontaneous vegetation occupying less than 50% of the total park area. Less manicured parks are defined as parks where more than 50% of the total park area comprises of natural habitats and/or spontaneous vegetation, with hiking or walking trails. These habitats may include tropical rainforest, secondary forests and woodlands, mangrove, mudflats, grasslands and coastal vegetation. These parks are all types of UGS as they are situated within the urban landscape matrix in Singapore.

To assess the trend in visitorship to parks, we obtained mobility data from Google that is publicly available for the months of February to October 2020, for the purpose of understanding potential risks of COVID-19 spread in communities (Google LLC, n.d.) . The data for Singapore were retrieved from Our World in Data (n.d.). Google's community mobility data provides anonymised general population visitorship trends to various categories of locations, with parks being one of the categories. The anonymised information is obtained from smartphone users who have permitted Google to use GPS tracking on their phones, and counts a visit to a location when the person is within the geographical area. The overall mobile subscription rate in Singapore stands at 152% of the overall population, as of September 2020 (IMDA, n.d.). Hence, our data would be an accurate representation of visitorship trends. The data were presented as a change in visitorship percentage compared to the pre-COVID-19 baseline, which was from 5 January to 3 February 2020.

To complement the Google mobility trend data, we also obtained visitor counts from selected parks, from 5 January to 26 September 2020. The visitor counts for each park were obtained from video surveillance cameras (Avigilon, model no. 2.0C-H4SL-B01-IR) at major park entrances that monitor visitor entry 24 hr a day and counted using in-built video analytics (software ICONICS GENESIS64). Three parks had visitorship data before the Circuit Breaker, namely Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR), Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG) and

Jurong Lake Gardens (JLG). These parks are popular green spaces and have high recreational value. They are similar in the extent of accessibility-each within short walking or cycling distances, or easily accessible by bus and train (stations are <0.85 km from park entrance). Since the beginning of the outbreak, 90 parks have deployed counting systems to monitor crowd levels to support safe distancing measures. However, these parks were not included in this study as there was no comparative visitor counts before the Circuit Breaker.

To understand the motivations for visiting parks during the Circuit Breaker and post-Circuit Breaker period, we carried out on-site surveys at five parks that vary in the degree of naturalness (i.e. TA B L E 1 Description of analysed parks. Abbreviations of park names in parentheses. Study method refers to the data used for each park where GS = Google trend, VS = visitor count, Q = questionnaire from less manicured to more manicured). These were conducted at the BTNR, SBG, JLG, Windsor Nature Park (WNP) and Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park (BAMK). Surveys were conducted over 6 weeks during the post-Circuit Breaker period between August and September 2020, on one weekday and one weekend (Saturday or Sunday) each week. Surveys were carried out in the mornings (8 am-12 pm) and evenings (3 pm-7 pm), to cover a wider range of visitors. The survey was given at the common spaces in each park, such as entrances of the park and outside public restrooms, to ensure that the study sample is not biased towards any particular type of user.

The survey questions ( Park staff were given a script to explain the purpose and delivery of the anonymous survey, seek verbal consent for voluntary participation and assure participants that all responses are non-identifiable.

After verbal consent was received, the participants were provided via a QR code to scan on their personal devices that led to the online survey (this was done to ensure safe distancing and added confidentiality of responses). The online form had a cover letter that reiterated that the survey is anonymous and participation is voluntary.

They were also informed that did not have to submit the form should they feel uncomfortable with any questions. By competing the survey, respondents consented to NParks collecting and using the information for the study. Only verbal consent to proceed was obtained. No incentives were given to respondents for completing the survey. The survey was hosted on a government online platform and all responses were encrypted end-to-end and accessible only by the research team. There was no local research ethics committee available to review this survey. However, the survey was done in a public park and does not put respondents at more than the minimal risks of everyday of life.

Singapore is a tropical city-state 1° north of the equator, with relatively consistent weather throughout the year. Hence, we assumed that any significant changes to park visitorship were likely due to social responses to COVID-related policies rather than weather fluc- Data from 5 January and 3 October 2020 were standardised to weekly counts to account for variation across weekdays and weekends. To discern the effects of Circuit Breaker, time periods were categorised into three specific windows by week relative to the Circuit Breaker: Pre-Circuit breaker (Weeks 1-13, 7 January to 6

April 2020), Circuit Breaker (Weeks 14-23, 7 April to 15 June 2020), and post-Circuit Breaker (Weeks 24-39, 16 June to 3 October 2020).

Within these periods, there were a similar number of public holidays with 2 days in Pre-Circuit Breaker and 3 days each in Circuit Breaker and Post-Circuit Breaker. A summary of the data used and the respective dates of data collection is in Table 3 . How much time does it take you to travel to this park to using the above-mentioned transportation mode?

How often do you visit this park since the start of Circuit breaker (on average)?

How has the frequency of your visit to this park changed, comparing now and before the Circuit Breaker?

What do you enjoy doing at this park?

Which of the following are reasons that motivate you to visit the parks during and after the Circuit Breaker?

Yes

o questions I resided in Singapore before and during the COVID pandemic Since April, I visited parks that I never visited before, or parks that I have not been to in the last 1 year I appreciate parks and the greenery in my neighbourhood now more than before the pandemic I am happy seeing our roadside and open spaces grow a little wilder I will continue to visit parks just as often or more even when things become normal again I feel that this park has become more crowded than before Circuit Breaker I am aware of some of the measures in parks to maintain public safety during the pandemic I feel that the measures in parks to ensure public safety during the pandemic are sufficient park types across the three Circuit Breaker phases for Google search proportions data and park visitor counts. Chi-square post-hoc test with Bonferroni correction was used to determine which Circuit Breaker phase had significant proportional differences (Beasley & Schumacker, 1995) . Chi-square test and the chi-square post-hoc test were also applied to compare the results of the questionnaire surveys.

Two-sample unequal variance Student's t-test, GLMM and

Chi-square analyses were conducted in R (v 4.0.2) (R Core Team, 2020). We used the 'mass' package (v 7.3-53) for our Chi-square test (Ripley et al., 2020) , 'chisq.posthoc.test' package (v 0.1.3) to perform our post-hoc Chi-square tests (Ebbert, 2019) , and the 'glmmTMB' package for our GLMM mixed-effects model (v 1.0.2.1) (Magnusson et al., 2020) .

The proportions of Google searches for parks varied across the 18 individual parks ( (Figure 1 ). Both the number of shops that were open and the size of the park also had significant effects on the searches, with a positive correlation (Figure 1 ).

Overall, manicured parks had a higher search proportion compared to less manicured parks, although this was not statistically significant (Table 5) .

The Although the Google Mobility Data reflect that the visitors to parks exceeded the baseline rate taken between 3 January and 6 February, the baseline would have been affected by tourism, which took a sharp hit due to the travel bans globally. Tourist numbers in Singapore were 1.69 million visitors the month of January 2020, and dropped to 8,912 visitors in the month of August 2020 (Elangovan, 2020 (Figure 3 ). Figure 4 ).

The proportion of first-time visitors was significantly higher for BTNR and WNP (51% for both), as compared to JLG and BAMK, which have a higher number of respondents who visit the park frequently once a week or more ( Figure 4) . Most respondents at BTNR had to travel further to visit the park as compared to those at JLG and BAMK where 45.6% and 51.1% of the visitors stayed within walking distance of the park.

Visitors were generally most likely to describe that they enjoyed the park for exercising, followed by appreciating the natural landscapes ( (Google LLC) and chart extracted from our world in data website compared to the median visitor level between 3 January and 6 February 2020. The blue vertical dotted lines represent the start of circuit breaker (7 April 2020) and subsequently phase 2 (19 June 2020)

28.8% of respondents responded that they visited parks as they were bored from staying at home. A number of respondents selected to provide their own responses, and among these, most of them stated that they went to the parks to tend to their allotment plot (allotment plot refers to a public gardening space that is rented by an individual).

Nearly all respondents answered positively with regard to their perception of their personal value of greenery since the COVID-19

Relative visitor counts to three well-known parks that remained open throughout the pandemic were significantly different between pre, during and post-circuit breaker. Chi-square post-hoc tests indicate the differences between phases and parks were significant (p < 0.001 for all except Singapore botanic gardens where p < 0.05) TA B L E 6 Park use patterns and perceptions of park visitors (n = 1,151). Significant differences from the null hypothesis where proportions were equivalent across the responses are highlighted; *** indicates significant differences at p < 0.001; *p < 0.05 (Table 6 ). Almost all park visitors were aware of measures taken for safe distancing in parks and expressed confidence in the management of safe distancing in parks during and after Circuit Breaker ( Table 6 ). The preference for connecting with nature also appeared to apply to other green areas outside of parks, as 94.3% of those surveyed responded positively to how the roadsides have grown 'wild' due to reduced maintenance activities during the Circuit Breaker.

The implementation of restrictions during the Circuit Breaker reduced online interest in parks, but the trend was reversed immediately after Circuit Breaker was lifted. In fact, all parks except one had higher search proportions than before the Circuit Breaker, with 12 out of 18 parks having a significant increase. The only park that did not show an increase in searches was the SBG, a UNESCO World

Heritage site that is popular among tourists and well known for hosting large festivals and events. During the pre-Circuit Breaker period from January to March 2020, SBG hosted 10 large events that drew thousands of people each time and people would tend to search for them via online channels. We speculate that this anomaly could be contributed to two main factors. First, a large proportion of SBG visitors comprised tourists during pre-COVID times, which was greatly reduced due to travel restrictions (Elangovan, 2020) . Second, large events and festivals had not yet resumed due to restrictions on the size of participants for events.

The spike in interest for parks in general after Circuit Breaker is further corroborated by similar trends shown via Google Mobility Data for parks. Right after the Circuit Breaker ended, visits to parks increased at a similar pace compared to other categories at the start, and a month later even experienced an increase in visitorship rates faster than retail and recreation when they were reopened. This is not surprising seeing that 45.4% of the park users have resumed their regular visit patterns to the parks before the pandemic and another 33.4% of visitors increased their use of the parks compared to before. This behavioural pattern of increased visitorship to parks was also observed in other parts of the world (Ma et al., 2021; Ugolini et al., 2020) , and in some areas sustained visitorship too (Venter et al., 2021) . This trend of park visitorship is likely to continue as almost all the respondents said that they will continue to visit parks in the new normal.

These results from google search and mobility data are in line with our predictions of a surge in interest in parks after a period of nature deprivation during the Circuit Breaker. The higher Google search rate also supports the notion that people who were previously not regular park visitors drove the surge in interest in parks.

This hypothesis was confirmed by the survey results, where 63.3% of respondents said that they had visited a new park since the Circuit Breaker and 37.6% were visiting the park for the first time when they took the survey. This high rate of first-time visitors was F I G U R E 4 Self-reported park visitor patterns during and post-circuit breaker (n = 1,151). Frequency of visits to the parks differed across the five parks, ordered left to right from highest intensity of nature to most manicured (χ 2 = 165.18, p < 0.001). A chi-square post-hoc test was done to find out which frequencies contribute more towards this significant difference between the parks. *** indicates the chi-square post-hoc test significant differences at p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05 also found in similar studies during the COVID-19 pandemic (Grima et al., 2020) . Related searches for the parks included terms such as 'hiking' and 'trail', which emphasised the need for outdoor recreation (Kleinschroth & Kowarik, 2020) .

The implementation and subsequent relaxation of mobility restrictions resulted in an increase in interest in parks, particularly in less manicured parks. Before the Circuit Breaker, Google searches for manicured parks were much higher than less manicured parks. There Many recent studies on the perception and use of UGS during the pandemic have emphasised the critical role of UGS in cities, citing its particular importance where access to other lifestyle activities is hindered (Kleinschroth & Kowarik, 2020; Soga et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2021) . Our results suggest that this demand for UGS is differentiated by types of UGS, with a higher preference for recreation in a less manicured or wilder landscape in urban areas. This finding is comparable to the study by Grima et al. (2020) in Vermont, USA, where 70% of respondents claimed to have increased their visitation rates to natural spaces in urban areas and attributed a greater importance to them in the pandemic. Another similarity is that respondents ranked exercise and enjoying nature at the UGS above social activities, which can be attributed to the nature of the pandemic and restrictions imposed by the government. If people preferentially seek our less manicured parks, the implication is also that less manicured parks, compared to more manicured parks, are better able to meet the needs of Singapore residents during the pandemic. In other words, parks should not be viewed as homogeneous green spaces-there are different 'shades of green' that provide different levels of cultural ecosystem services as revealed by different sources of data in our study.

Interest in parks was also driven by two other key factors, namely, the size of the park and number of shops available. Several studies have reported positive correlations between park size and park use (Gu et al., 2020; Talal & Santelmann, 2021; Vierikko et al., 2020) . Park users also showed a greater preference towards larger green spaces (Wang et al., 2015) . Users preferred larger parks due to the increased perceived variety and opportunities to relax within the park (Corti et al., 1996) , and thus also increases their motivations to visit (Halkos et al., 2021; Vierikko et al., 2020) . In our study, larger parks provide more space (or distance in terms of trails) and amenities for exercising, which was the main activity that visitors used parks for. Commercial spaces that include food and beverage outlets (referred to as Shopping and Restaurants Places of Interests or SRPOIs) attract visitors to parks and open spaces (Chen et al., 2016) . Apart from children's playgrounds and toilets, SRPOIs form key park facilities and are positively correlated with park user density (Chen et al., 2018) . Our results showed that retail shops provide opportunities for social interactions, which were important for 49.4% of park visitors.

We discuss our results in relation to people's connection to nature in this section. The overall increase in interest to visit parks, accompanied by an increase in less manicured parks, and the appreciation of natural landscape as the top reason for visiting parks among firsttime visitors converge as evidence that in Singapore, the COVID-19

pandemic has heightened the need for residents to be in contact with nature. This is against the backdrop that local studies have shown that there was no extinction of experience of nature prior to the pandemic, and 76% of the population in a large cohort study visited parks monthly, and that life satisfaction is in fact, closely related to nature (Chang et al., 2020; Oh et al., 2020; Petrunoff et al., 2021) .

Therefore, the mobility restrictions, together with the stresses arising from COVID-19, has increased the demand for contact with nature even in a city with high park visitorship.

Our results also point to an interesting phenomenon-there was a temporary deprivation of contact with nature during the Circuit (Nadkarni et al., 2017) . The COVID-19 lockdown in different parts of the world triggered mental and emotional stress as people refrained or were curbed from having social interactions as they were largely confined to their homes (Douglas et al., 2020) . For example, studies reported an increase in stress and anxiety of students due to confinement (Giuntella et al., 2021; Husky et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020) . The build-up of stresses provoked behaviour and actions to try to alleviate them (Lechner et al., 2020) , of which an outlet for relaxation was being in nature (Berdejo-Espinola et al., 2021). We found this to be true for Singapore during the pandemic. Most of the survey respondents agreed that they visited parks to relax.

The rapid bounce back to experiencing nature after restrictions were lifted is also in line with the Health Belief Model (HBM) (Rosenstock, 1974) . With strong evidence on the effects of confinement causing declining mental health during the COVID-19 lockdowns, the model explains a sudden switch to pro-nature lifestyles as people sought out opportunities for health and wellness benefits in UGS during the pandemic (Ramkissoon, 2020) . The spike at BTNR was fuelled by a large proportion of first-time visitors to the park (51% of survey respondents) who visited the parks to primarily enjoy the natural landscapes and not for exercise. Experiencing these green spaces allows for restoration of psychological health (Akpinar et al., 2016; Subiza-Pérez et al., 2020) and the perceived animal diversity of the green space has been shown to improve emotional well-being (Nghiem et al., 2021) .

The pathway in which the COVID-19 pandemic influences the cultural ecosystem services of UGS is important for future planning (Soga et al., 2021) . Although the findings from this study suggest that these pathways describe reasons for the observations, the study has its limitations. The study would be able to draw more conclusive remarks on the effects of the extinction in nature experience, if there was a cross-reference to the respondents' mental well-being in the Circuit Breaker phases. In addition, surveys did not measure the state of orientation of the respondents to nature prior to the Circuit Breaker. Knowing their inclinations towards nature would provide a better understanding of how likely respondents would continue to want to experience nature even when opportunities are reduced (Colléony et al., 2020) . The COVID-19 pandemic happened suddenly, and it provided an unprecedented opportunity for us to study this unique global social phenomenon and study park usage patterns using a fresh baseline.

Prolonged home confinement through the implementation of travel restrictions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was a stimulus that changed behaviour and preference of city dwellers towards parks and green spaces. COVID-19 restrictions allowed the opportunity to understand the cultural ecosystem services provided by different types of UGS. The combination of multiple data sourcesbig data and physical surveys-have converged to conclude that the interest in and visits to parks became higher than it was before the pandemic, for relaxation and enjoyment of less manicured and natural landscapes. Looking beyond the pandemic in the new normal, it is important that urban nature and green spaces continue to be accessible to all. In Singapore, this further reinforces the important of the park planning target in Singapore to ensure that each and every person can access a park or green space within a 10-min walk of their homes. The implications on park planning policy would then be to ensure that Singapore has a connected network of diversity of green spaces, including access to less manicured parks that people can easily access and experience nature.

We greatly appreciate the support provided by the park staff at the Jurong Lake Gardens, Singapore Botanic Gardens, Windsor Nature Park, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park that helped with the surveys in addition to their role of managing the safe distancing in the parks. We would like to thank the reviewers and editors for their invaluable comments on the draft of the manuscript.

The authors work in a government body that oversees parks and green spaces in Singapore. They declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. be accountable for the aspects of work they conducted.

The data for visitor counts ( Figure 3 ) and visitor survey (Figure 4 and (Yap et al., 2022) . 

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Assessing, mapping, and quantifying cultural ecosystem services at community level

R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing

COVID-19 place confinement, pro-social, proenvironmental behaviors, and Residents' wellbeing: A new conceptual framework

Understanding changes in park visitation during the COVID-19 pandemic: A spatial application of big data

Package 'MASS'. Support functions and datasets for Venables and Ripley's MASS. Version 7.5-53

Historical origins of the health belief model

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on human-nature interactions: Pathways, evidence and implications. People and Nature

Extinction of experience: The loss of human-nature interactions

Green and blue settings as providers of mental health ecosystem services: Comparing urban beaches and parks and building a predictive model of psychological restoration

Visitor access, use, and desired improvements in urban parks. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

Perspectives on five decades of the urban greening of Singapore

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use and perceptions of urban green space: An international exploratory study. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

Urban nature in a time of crisis: Recreational use of green space increases during the COVID-19 outbreak in Oslo

Back to nature: Norwegians sustain increased recreational use of urban green space months after the COVID-19 outbreak

Biocultural diversity (BCD) in European cities -Interactions between motivations, experiences and environment in public parks

Factors influencing perceived access to urban parks: A comparative study of Brisbane (Australia) and Zhongshan (China)

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in the general population: A systematic review

Urban greenery cushions the decrease in leisure-time physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A natural experimental study. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

Dataset for paper titled "The influence of COVID-19 pandemic on the demand for different shades of green

Building community resilience beyond COVID-19: The Singapore way. The Lancet Regional Health

The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teenagers in China. The Journal of Adolescent Health: Official Publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine

Sina microblog sentiment in Beijing city parks as measure of demand for urban green space during the COVID-19. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening