Domestic gardens, equitable climate resilience, ecosystem services and health

There are approximately 25.8 million gardens in the UK, 20.6 million of which are classed as ‘domestic’, which equates to more than 500,000 hectares of land as gardens at people’s homes. More than half of the UK adult population gardens regularly. Gardening has been linked to positive mental and physical health outcomes and can promote community cohesion.

Gardens can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation through a number of pathways including carbon sequestration, urban cooling, flood risk reduction, as well as providing an important ecosystem for biodiversity and contributing to soil health. How these gardens are designed and managed is of crucial importance: for instance 42% of domestic garden space is paved over (55% of front garden space and 36% of back garden space), limiting their potential to deliver climate resilience. This is a particular problem in urban spaces which are generally more built-up than rural areas. Further, there are significant social inequalities in who benefits from domestic gardens; whilst benefit is not limited to active use of a garden, people in lower socio-economic groups are around 3 times as likely to have no access to a garden compared to those in higher socio-economic groups.

Existing research has put greater emphasis more generally on publicly accessible greenspaces and green infrastructure. While public green spaces are critical, they make up around 5% of urban land cover, while private gardens are around 30%, but remain relatively under-studied, a research gap that this project will address.

The project – spanning across the Urban Systems and Green and Blue Spaces themes of Net+ – will characterise and assess the current and future potential contribution of domestic gardens in the UK to heat mitigation, flood resilience, and air pollution mitigation exploring the role of domestic gardens to climate related health promotion and protection. The work will inform planning strategies and related policy on domestic gardens to deliver future climate resilience.

Key partners are Natural England, Nature Scot and Natural Resources Wales, and NGOs including National Trust. Departments of Health, Communities and Local Government, at national and local levels and across the developed nations, will also be involved.