Simon Bell
Biographic Data
| ID | 3696833 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simon Bell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simon |
| FAMILY NAME | Bell |
| SIGNATURE | BELL S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Estonian University of Life Sciences |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9856-1169 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 72 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The socio-cultural values of ecosystem services in managed, semi-managed and low-managed urban blue spaces and their surroundings. A case study of Warsaw, Poland
Urban blue spaces provide important ecosystem services (ES), that support health and well-being of city residents. This study examined residents' perceptions of ES provided by managed, semi-managed and low-managed blue spaces and their surroundings in Warsaw, a city dominated by the River Vistula which flows through its centre and is partially unregulated. We conducted a geo-questionnaire, asking respondents to mark their favourite blue spaces an…
The First Step in Triadic Decision-Making Involving People with Dementia
Everyone should have the opportunity to participate in decisions about their health, including people living with dementia. People with dementia typically bring a companion to medical appointments, so most care decisions are made in interactions involving three parties. To make decisions about their care, patients with dementia must have the opportunity to take a turn-at-talk in conversations where decisions are made. However, negotiating who spe…
How can place support pedagogy? Application of the concept of cognitive affordances in research and design of outdoor learning environments
This paper adopts an ecological approach to describe the opportunities offered by school landscape for children’s curricular learning. The approach is based on Gibson’s concept of affordances which refers to the opportunities offered by an environment to its users. The research conducted in school grounds in two different contexts – Scotland and Bangladesh drew on this theory to examine the relationship between the school landscape and children’s…
Understanding the autonomy of adults with impaired capacity through dialogue
Theory-based design for promoting positive behaviours in an urban blue space
Behaviour observation and mapping are useful planning tools to generate evidence to create people-friendly public spaces. Small-scale interventions are gaining popularity as cost-effective and quick solutions to regenerate degraded urban outdoor environments. Onsite behaviour observation mapping with GIS underpins evidence gathering, analysis, and planning and design decision-making. Using the BlueHealth Behaviour Assessment Tool (BBAT) developed…
Assessing the impact of blue and green spaces on mental health of disabled children
During recent decades, there has been a growing consideration of the role of blue and green spaces on mental health of children, but there is insufficient attention in the literature to the mental health of children with disabilities. This paper presents an overview of the evidence on how blue and green spaces affect the mental health of children with various disabilities. A database search found twenty studies eligible for the review, after seve…
Associations between green/blue spaces and mental health across 18 countries
Living near, recreating in, and feeling psychologically connected to, the natural world are all associated with better mental health, but many exposure-related questions remain. Using data from an 18-country survey ( n = 16,307) we explored associations between multiple measures of mental health (positive well-being, mental distress, depression/anxiety medication use) and: (a) exposures (residential/recreational visits) to different natural setti…
Urban blue space renovation and local resident and visitor well-being
Observational studies have suggested that people with better access to attractive, safe, and inclusive blue spaces enjoy higher psychological well-being, with particular benefits for those living in deprived urban areas. However, intervention studies are scarce. To help bridge this gap we conducted a repeat cross-sectional study exploring local resident and visitor well-being before and after a small-scale intervention aimed at improving the qual…
Time Distances to Residential Food Amenities and Daily Walking Duration
Recent studies indicate the accepted concept of using land-use mix (LUM) to promote physical activity is ineffective and even counteractive in the Chinese context. Before considering LUM as a whole, different amenity types need to be respectively analyzed in relation to various functions and demands. This study aims to examine the specific associations between food-related amenities and perceived daily walking duration (WD) in small Chinese citie…
A Transdisciplinary Approach to Recovering Natural and Cultural Landscape and Place Identification
The perception of the quality of green and blue spaces can be key in the relationship between a community and its local landscape (i.e., place identification). The lack of transdisciplinary training and social-specific education of landscape architects regarding the complexity of landscape as a participative cultural artefact limits reaching the general population. Bridging this gap of landscape and place identification and evaluation by a local …
Testing the reliability and effectiveness of a new tool for assessing urban blue spaces
Place, Pedagogy and Play
Place, Pedagogy and Play connects landscape architecture with education, psychology, public health and planning. Over the course of thirteen chapters it examines how design and research of places can be approached through multiple lenses – of pedagogy and play and how children, as competent social agents, are engaged in the process of designing their own spaces – and brings a global perspective to the debate around child-friendly environments.Des…
Designing an outdoor learning environment for and with a primary school community
In Bangladesh, school grounds are usually barren areas devoid of any designed features. This study explored children’s, teachers’ and parents’ views of what would constitute an effective school ground for learning, socialising and playing at primary schools in rural Bangladesh. Working within the theory of behaviour settings to design school grounds, several methods were applied: focus groups with children, teachers and parents, a drawing session…
Everyday use of urban street spaces
In contemporary Chinese cities dynamic street vendors are a common presence, frequently occupying spaces where many people regularly walk, leading to functional changes to the streets. This research aim was to examine the everyday use of urban streets at a micro-scale, to explore spatio-temporal relations between the fixed built environment and the ways in which vendors and pedestrians co-produce walkable space and walking behaviours over time. U…
Exploring the Associations of Walking Behavior with Neighborhood Environments by Different Life Stages
Because of high population density and rapid urbanization, different human life stages have distinct growth experiences, leading to different lifestyles and age-spatial separation in the same neighborhood environment, particularly in smaller Chinese cities. The relationship of environment to physical activity may differ from western or larger Chinese cities. This study examined the associations of walking duration to the neighborhood environment …
BlueHealth
INTRODUCTION: Proximity and access to water have long been central to human culture and accordingly deliver countless societal benefits. Over 200 million people live on Europe's coastline, and aquatic environments are the top recreational destination in the region. In terms of public health, interactions with 'blue space' (eg, coasts, rivers, lakes) are often considered solely in terms of risk (eg, drowning, microbial pollution). Exposure to blue…
Wildlife Management Conflicts in Rural Communities
Wildlife conflicts are often characterised by conflicts between groups due to an incompatible understanding of the management of the resource. Latvia has experienced an increase in wild boar numbers and associated damage due to improved habitat, caused by land abandonment and actions taken by hunting organisations to maintain boar populations. In Ērgļu Novads, an administrative district of Latvia where the damage is particularly intense, wild boa…
Rich Pictures
Rich Pictures focuses on the value of developing visual narratives – Rich Pictures – as an important component and starting point for community participation. A key device for the community to share ideas and perspectives on current and potential future situations, Rich Pictures provide a shared space for members to set out ideas and negotiate. While Rich Pictures are widely and globally used, this is the first book discussing their use, and how …
Rich Pictures
This paper concerns the interpretation of pictures that stakeholders draw in order to help them structure and understand complex situations. The pictures in question are called Rich Pictures (RPs) and the matter at the heart of interpretation is insight drawn from eduction (drawing forth). Insights relate to stakeholders of all kinds, be they the individual, the group, the context in which the individual and the group find themselves, or the mean…
Writing before it was All Shakespeare
In this paper I argue that short and carefully structured essays can foster risk if they blend unfamiliar format with proper content demand. Students were given a square with 16 lines and 128 words and were asked to rewrite it into an eristic essay of the same format. The project's theoretical basis was short stories' use of scale, suggestion, openers, repeats, subversion; risk; academic writing, reader response. A lot of the essays were daring a…
Blank Space
The gradual relocation of industry and other related activities out of the core areas of cities often results in voids in the urban structure-spaces that are 'left over'. These places-in transition between their past and future functions-are landscapes with no formal spatial arrangement or current use. Their state of limbo often allows for a variety of informal and spontaneous uses that may enrich the urban structure, albeit temporarily, with the…
Understanding Cultural Interfaces in the Landscape
Landscapes by definition include interactions between man and nature. Our actions, perceptions and beliefs create and shape the landscape over time. The aim of this study was to evaluate aspects of the Lycian landscape in the Turkish Mediterranean, testing an approach based on interpreting cultural interfaces. Interfaces between past and present, between man and nature, between culture and space and between the visual and the spiritual were evalu…
Art Therapy and Spirituality
This article discusses spirituality in health care and how this area of need can be addressed through art therapy, especially in palliative care. It proposes that art-making is deeply imbued with transcendent and non-materialistic qualities of human experience, and that religion and spirituality are inseparable from art as they are inseparable from life. Through a discussion about meaning-making in art therapy in palliative care, spirituality is …
Groups and Indicators in Post‐Industrial Society
Indicators define our world. We are constantly measured and assessed. Perhaps the most important indicator in current use is Gross Domestic Product or GDP. It is the measure of a nation's success and can be key to its ability to borrow money and appear internationally credible. This paper is set against the current debate ‘Beyond GDP’ begun in November 2007 with the conference hosted by the European Commission, European Parliament, Club of Rome, …
Futurescaping Infinite Bandwidth, Zero Latency
Rich pictures
The European Union Framework Package 7 project POINT (Policy Influence of Indicators) is exploring the use of indicators in several domains (most specifically sustainable development) to see how their value and ultimate usefulness can be maximized. One key aspect of POINT is to assess the ways in which groups and communities work to make the greatest use of information. Using an innovative methodology called ‘Triple Task’, the authors are applyin…
Experiences with sustainability indicators and stakeholder participation
The practical application of systemic sustainability analysis (SSA; Bell and Morse, 1999) as applied in a project instigated and managed by ‘Blue Plan’, one of the regional activity centres of the Mediterranean Action Plan, is set out and explained in this paper. The context in which SSA was applied and adapted to SPSA (systemic and prospective sustainability analysis) is described in the Mediterranean, primarily in Malta. The SSA process is summ…
It Gets You Away From Everyday Life”
This paper explores who uses woodlands near their homes, why they visit, what benefits they believe they obtain and what makes the difference between them choosing to visit or not. In the research, supported by the Forestry Commission, a multi-method, user-led approach was used, based on focus groups, questionnaire surveys and on-site observation in relation to five different communities in the central belt of Scotland. The conclusions demonstrat…
Rural Society, Social Inclusion and Landscape Change in Central and Eastern Europe
The countryside of Europe is undergoing many social, economic and environmental changes as a result of depopulation and agricultural land abandonment. This trend, driven in part by the wide disparity of income levels between rural and urban inhabitants, is particularly evident in the Central and Eastern European countries such as Latvia, which joined the EU in 2004 and in 2007. Research was undertaken in Latvia in 2003, the year before it joined …
Rich Pictures
This paper concerns the interpretation of pictures that stakeholders draw in order to help them structure and understand complex situations. The pictures in question are called Rich Pictures (RPs) and the matter at the heart of interpretation is insight drawn from eduction (drawing forth). Insights relate to stakeholders of all kinds, be they the individual, the group, the context in which the individual and the group find themselves, or the mean…
Story telling in sustainable development projects
This paper constitutes an attempt to find a means to represent multiple stories in the strong narrative of conventional sustainable development (SD) projects. The authors' experience of such projects in various parts of the world indicates that they have a tendency to arise from and reflect a dominant mindset, placing the SD project in what can be a working environment that is inimical to the very ideals that SD is supposed to represent. Short‐te…
Blank Space
The gradual relocation of industry and other related activities out of the core areas of cities often results in voids in the urban structure-spaces that are 'left over'. These places-in transition between their past and future functions-are landscapes with no formal spatial arrangement or current use. Their state of limbo often allows for a variety of informal and spontaneous uses that may enrich the urban structure, albeit temporarily, with the…
Everyday use of urban street spaces
In contemporary Chinese cities dynamic street vendors are a common presence, frequently occupying spaces where many people regularly walk, leading to functional changes to the streets. This research aim was to examine the everyday use of urban streets at a micro-scale, to explore spatio-temporal relations between the fixed built environment and the ways in which vendors and pedestrians co-produce walkable space and walking behaviours over time. U…
Wildlife Management Conflicts in Rural Communities
Wildlife conflicts are often characterised by conflicts between groups due to an incompatible understanding of the management of the resource. Latvia has experienced an increase in wild boar numbers and associated damage due to improved habitat, caused by land abandonment and actions taken by hunting organisations to maintain boar populations. In Ērgļu Novads, an administrative district of Latvia where the damage is particularly intense, wild boa…
Understanding Cultural Interfaces in the Landscape
Landscapes by definition include interactions between man and nature. Our actions, perceptions and beliefs create and shape the landscape over time. The aim of this study was to evaluate aspects of the Lycian landscape in the Turkish Mediterranean, testing an approach based on interpreting cultural interfaces. Interfaces between past and present, between man and nature, between culture and space and between the visual and the spiritual were evalu…
Testing the reliability and effectiveness of a new tool for assessing urban blue spaces
Designing an outdoor learning environment for and with a primary school community
In Bangladesh, school grounds are usually barren areas devoid of any designed features. This study explored children’s, teachers’ and parents’ views of what would constitute an effective school ground for learning, socialising and playing at primary schools in rural Bangladesh. Working within the theory of behaviour settings to design school grounds, several methods were applied: focus groups with children, teachers and parents, a drawing session…
Management of Cultural Landscapes
Concern about changing cultural landscapes has increased recently, with the advent of the European Landscape Convention placing signatory countries in a position of having to develop action for protecting and managing cultural landscapes. In countries of the former Soviet Union the landscape underwent many changes as a result of agricultural collectivisation and its aftermath. This situation has been analysed for six sample rural municipalities (…
Futurescaping Infinite Bandwidth, Zero Latency
Information technology in Africa
Information technology in Africa
Learning with Information Systems
In Learning with Information Systems the author takes the developing world as the context and through a series of case studies develops a commonly used systems analysis methodology. He demonstrates how this methodology can evolve and adapt as new ideas become prominent. Issues of sustainability of information systems, participation in systems design and user ownership of systems are all examined
Finding out rapidly
Thailand is experiencing the unfamiliar phenomenon of aid and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank lending money for internal development programmes. In the economic boom years, aid was neither sought nor required since structural development was funded from the growth which South-East Asian countries had begun to take for granted. Today, falling growth and rising unemployment linked to a depreciating currency a…
Experiences with sustainability indicators and stakeholder participation
The practical application of systemic sustainability analysis (SSA; Bell and Morse, 1999) as applied in a project instigated and managed by ‘Blue Plan’, one of the regional activity centres of the Mediterranean Action Plan, is set out and explained in this paper. The context in which SSA was applied and adapted to SPSA (systemic and prospective sustainability analysis) is described in the Mediterranean, primarily in Malta. The SSA process is summ…
It Gets You Away From Everyday Life”
This paper explores who uses woodlands near their homes, why they visit, what benefits they believe they obtain and what makes the difference between them choosing to visit or not. In the research, supported by the Forestry Commission, a multi-method, user-led approach was used, based on focus groups, questionnaire surveys and on-site observation in relation to five different communities in the central belt of Scotland. The conclusions demonstrat…
Story telling in sustainable development projects
This paper constitutes an attempt to find a means to represent multiple stories in the strong narrative of conventional sustainable development (SD) projects. The authors' experience of such projects in various parts of the world indicates that they have a tendency to arise from and reflect a dominant mindset, placing the SD project in what can be a working environment that is inimical to the very ideals that SD is supposed to represent. Short‐te…
Management of Cultural Landscapes
Concern about changing cultural landscapes has increased recently, with the advent of the European Landscape Convention placing signatory countries in a position of having to develop action for protecting and managing cultural landscapes. In countries of the former Soviet Union the landscape underwent many changes as a result of agricultural collectivisation and its aftermath. This situation has been analysed for six sample rural municipalities (…
Rural Society, Social Inclusion and Landscape Change in Central and Eastern Europe
The countryside of Europe is undergoing many social, economic and environmental changes as a result of depopulation and agricultural land abandonment. This trend, driven in part by the wide disparity of income levels between rural and urban inhabitants, is particularly evident in the Central and Eastern European countries such as Latvia, which joined the EU in 2004 and in 2007. Research was undertaken in Latvia in 2003, the year before it joined …
Management of Recreation and Nature Based Tourism in European Forests
This book provides for the first time a Europe-wide overview on the state of the art of management of recreation and nature tourism in forests. It describes the current situation and conflicts in the different regions of Europe and provides solutions illustrated by good practise examples. It addresses traditions, differences and similarities in European forests as well as new tasks, goals and strategies. The final discussion provides a profound i…
Rich pictures
The European Union Framework Package 7 project POINT (Policy Influence of Indicators) is exploring the use of indicators in several domains (most specifically sustainable development) to see how their value and ultimate usefulness can be maximized. One key aspect of POINT is to assess the ways in which groups and communities work to make the greatest use of information. Using an innovative methodology called ‘Triple Task’, the authors are applyin…
Art Therapy and Spirituality
This article discusses spirituality in health care and how this area of need can be addressed through art therapy, especially in palliative care. It proposes that art-making is deeply imbued with transcendent and non-materialistic qualities of human experience, and that religion and spirituality are inseparable from art as they are inseparable from life. Through a discussion about meaning-making in art therapy in palliative care, spirituality is …
Groups and Indicators in Post‐Industrial Society
Indicators define our world. We are constantly measured and assessed. Perhaps the most important indicator in current use is Gross Domestic Product or GDP. It is the measure of a nation's success and can be key to its ability to borrow money and appear internationally credible. This paper is set against the current debate ‘Beyond GDP’ begun in November 2007 with the conference hosted by the European Commission, European Parliament, Club of Rome, …
Futurescaping Infinite Bandwidth, Zero Latency
Understanding Cultural Interfaces in the Landscape
Landscapes by definition include interactions between man and nature. Our actions, perceptions and beliefs create and shape the landscape over time. The aim of this study was to evaluate aspects of the Lycian landscape in the Turkish Mediterranean, testing an approach based on interpreting cultural interfaces. Interfaces between past and present, between man and nature, between culture and space and between the visual and the spiritual were evalu…
Writing before it was All Shakespeare
In this paper I argue that short and carefully structured essays can foster risk if they blend unfamiliar format with proper content demand. Students were given a square with 16 lines and 128 words and were asked to rewrite it into an eristic essay of the same format. The project's theoretical basis was short stories' use of scale, suggestion, openers, repeats, subversion; risk; academic writing, reader response. A lot of the essays were daring a…
Blank Space
The gradual relocation of industry and other related activities out of the core areas of cities often results in voids in the urban structure-spaces that are 'left over'. These places-in transition between their past and future functions-are landscapes with no formal spatial arrangement or current use. Their state of limbo often allows for a variety of informal and spontaneous uses that may enrich the urban structure, albeit temporarily, with the…
Rich Pictures
This paper concerns the interpretation of pictures that stakeholders draw in order to help them structure and understand complex situations. The pictures in question are called Rich Pictures (RPs) and the matter at the heart of interpretation is insight drawn from eduction (drawing forth). Insights relate to stakeholders of all kinds, be they the individual, the group, the context in which the individual and the group find themselves, or the mean…
Rich Pictures
Rich Pictures focuses on the value of developing visual narratives – Rich Pictures – as an important component and starting point for community participation. A key device for the community to share ideas and perspectives on current and potential future situations, Rich Pictures provide a shared space for members to set out ideas and negotiate. While Rich Pictures are widely and globally used, this is the first book discussing their use, and how …
BlueHealth
INTRODUCTION: Proximity and access to water have long been central to human culture and accordingly deliver countless societal benefits. Over 200 million people live on Europe's coastline, and aquatic environments are the top recreational destination in the region. In terms of public health, interactions with 'blue space' (eg, coasts, rivers, lakes) are often considered solely in terms of risk (eg, drowning, microbial pollution). Exposure to blue…
Wildlife Management Conflicts in Rural Communities
Wildlife conflicts are often characterised by conflicts between groups due to an incompatible understanding of the management of the resource. Latvia has experienced an increase in wild boar numbers and associated damage due to improved habitat, caused by land abandonment and actions taken by hunting organisations to maintain boar populations. In Ērgļu Novads, an administrative district of Latvia where the damage is particularly intense, wild boa…
Exploring the Associations of Walking Behavior with Neighborhood Environments by Different Life Stages
Because of high population density and rapid urbanization, different human life stages have distinct growth experiences, leading to different lifestyles and age-spatial separation in the same neighborhood environment, particularly in smaller Chinese cities. The relationship of environment to physical activity may differ from western or larger Chinese cities. This study examined the associations of walking duration to the neighborhood environment …
Place, Pedagogy and Play
Place, Pedagogy and Play connects landscape architecture with education, psychology, public health and planning. Over the course of thirteen chapters it examines how design and research of places can be approached through multiple lenses – of pedagogy and play and how children, as competent social agents, are engaged in the process of designing their own spaces – and brings a global perspective to the debate around child-friendly environments.Des…
Designing an outdoor learning environment for and with a primary school community
In Bangladesh, school grounds are usually barren areas devoid of any designed features. This study explored children’s, teachers’ and parents’ views of what would constitute an effective school ground for learning, socialising and playing at primary schools in rural Bangladesh. Working within the theory of behaviour settings to design school grounds, several methods were applied: focus groups with children, teachers and parents, a drawing session…
Everyday use of urban street spaces
In contemporary Chinese cities dynamic street vendors are a common presence, frequently occupying spaces where many people regularly walk, leading to functional changes to the streets. This research aim was to examine the everyday use of urban streets at a micro-scale, to explore spatio-temporal relations between the fixed built environment and the ways in which vendors and pedestrians co-produce walkable space and walking behaviours over time. U…
Associations between green/blue spaces and mental health across 18 countries
Living near, recreating in, and feeling psychologically connected to, the natural world are all associated with better mental health, but many exposure-related questions remain. Using data from an 18-country survey ( n = 16,307) we explored associations between multiple measures of mental health (positive well-being, mental distress, depression/anxiety medication use) and: (a) exposures (residential/recreational visits) to different natural setti…
Computer Science (17 works) · Geography (17 works) · Political science (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Urban Green Space and Health (15 works) · Engineering (11 works) · Business (9 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Law (7 works)