The EPA calls this phenomenon a "heat island. Rooftop gardens in cities can help offset the heat island effect. Who needs a trip to the beach to cool off when you could just chill in your garden? Reducing your energy consumption is good for the planet in many obvious ways, but let's not forget that it's a great way to leave you with more dollars in your wallet, too. If you have room in your yard, planting trees can lower your air conditioning costs even more.
You can help keep our water clean and pristine by planting a rain garden. Rain gardens help capture and filter polluted runoff that comes from our rooftops and our driveways. They also have a bonus superpower: preventing flooding. You can learn how to build your own rain garden here. Soil erosion is a global problem not just because it decreases our crop yield: When those crops disappear, we also lose vegetation that's sucking up a lot of that carbon dioxide we talked about earlier.
Thus, soil erosion can lead to more drastic climate change. Plus, all you need is a little ground containers work nicely too , something easy to water with check out these affordable, professional-grade , watering nozzles , and the will to do so. The roots of your plants help bind your soils together, making them less likely to wash away after particularly heavy rain and protecting slopes from sliding downhill.
Topsoils are more likely to be affected by water movement, and these are often the soils you most want as they contain organic debris and leaf litter that eventually breakdown to help add nutrients into the soils. Good ground cover with extensive root systems help keep this from happening. As mentioned above, topsoils are created by leaf litter and other organic materials that fall from plants. Certain types of vegetation help fix certain nutrients into the ground as well, and choosing those types of plants can help reduce the use of synthetic fertilizers.
The higher the incidence of green spaces also reduces urban noises, creating a quieter atmosphere. Pollinator, in particular, need all the support they can get, and you can provide much more than just a food source. Cultivating health and wellbeing: Members' perceptions of the health benefits of a Port Melbourne community garden. Leisure Studies, 28 2 , Weltin, A. The effect of a community garden on HgA1c in diabetics of Marshallese descent.
J Community Health Nurs, 29 1 , Zick, C. Harvesting more than vegetables: the potential weight control benefits of community gardening. Am J Public Health, 6 , Search results will be exported to EndNote Thompson Reuters. Active and first-hand gardening activities e. Flower gardens, vegetable gardens including community allotments and wildlife gardens will be included. Although the duration of participation in the activities will not determine inclusion in the review, where possible it will be considered as a potential sub-group factor.
Includable community gardening activities are listed below but are not expected to be exhaustive:. The review will also include a group of activities which are commonly described as 'therapeutic' gardening and horticulture.
These are activities which, like community gardening, take place in a shared garden space but in which the purpose of the activities is specifically related to recuperation, healing and restoration of the participants. The synthesis will be sensitive to the differences between those community garden activities which have explicit health and wellbeing aims and those that do not. It is likely that such differences will necessitate the aims being treated as a sub-group factor.
There are a range of terms used to describe associated community gardening activities and places: for instance, some forms of guerilla gardening, collective horticulture, pocket park creation, and community greening. These will all be includable provided they meet the basic definition of communal gardening activities as described above. Where possible the potential differential impacts of activities undertaken in different contexts e. Where studies are identified in which a range of activities but including community gardening are assessed only those studies where the outcomes relate solely or in the majority i.
All decisions relating to these types of studies will be recorded and justified in the final report. Private use of gardens, parks, and school gardens will be excluded as these are considered to be fundamentally different activities or settings. In the case of school gardens the impacts of 'community' gardening in this setting will be addressed in a separate review [ 52 ].
This review will not consider impacts to the environment, for example increases in biodiversity. The description of the intervention above is not exhaustive, the expert advisory board will provide further guidance on the breadth and intentions of community gardening activities.
The search strategy will be modified if necessary. Adults or children as defined in each includable study actively participating in community gardening, as defined in previous sections, in any setting other than the school. Our analysis will be sensitive to potential differential impacts on specific subgroups of people; this will be carried out according to factors such as socio-economic status, employment, age, and physical, mental or sensory health.
It is anticipated that includable studies may relate to both voluntary and 'non-voluntary' e. Studies, or the aspects of a study focusing on the impact of community gardening activities which form part or all of a paid role will be excluded.
The routes to participation e. It is anticipated that the qualitative evidence will be used to examine the routes to participation in community gardening. Following a review in a similar area it is anticipated that there will be few if any randomised, controlled studies in this field [ 30 ]. A broad range of study designs will, therefore, be included and our full report will critically reflect on the implications this might have for the robustness of the findings. The following types of quantitative studies will be considered for inclusion in the review definitions of includable study designs are taken from the UK's National Institute of Health and Care Excellence's guide to study designs [ 56 ]:.
Controlled before-and-after studies with any appropriate comparator group i. Interrupted time series; the intervention points must be clearly defined with three outcome measurements times e. Case-control studies; these will be included where the selection and comparability criteria are clear and where steps have been taken to reduce bias.
Baseline characteristics should have been comprehensively reported to allow for assessment of potential confounders.
If there are no higher order study designs available, uncontrolled before and after studies uBAs will be considered. It is recognised that uBAs cannot assess causality and are subject to multiple sources of bias, however this approach to study inclusion has been used in several previous reviews of subjects where studies using higher order deigns are not common [ 30 ].
In studies using a controlled study design any appropriate comparator activity will be considered, an example would be voluntary activity in a community library or no activity. Qualitative research, from any discipline or theoretical tradition that uses recognised qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, and which aims to describe the experiences of those taking part in community gardening will be considered for inclusion. Methods of analysis may include: grounded theory, narrative analysis, thematic analysis, hermeneutic phenomenological analysis, discourse analysis.
To be considered for inclusion qualitative studies should have adequately described methodologies and have presented results using 1 st or 2 nd order constructs with adequate supportive evidence in the form of direct quotes, diary entries etc.
Mixed studies: Studies making use of both quantitative and qualitative aspects within the design will also be includable if one or both elements meet the methodological criteria for the respective approach as detailed above.
Includable primary outcomes will include any recognised measure of health and well-being, whether physical or mental including emotional and quality of life , assessed using self-reported and objective measures.
It is anticipated that these will include:. Physiological outcomes for example, heart rate, cortisol levels, per cent body fat or BMI assessed using standardised tools.
Physical health outcomes, general or specific assessed using, for example, objective tools such as accelerometers, validated measures such as elements of the Short Form Health Survey or using other self-reported measures of health status, general function or capacity.
Quality of life outcomes these may be assessed using, for example, the Short Form 36 or 12 quality of life measures or the Euroquol EQ-5D measures. Additional outcomes, including adverse or unintended outcomes and mechanisms known to be determinants of health or wellbeing e. Physical activity behaviours for example, frequency, pattern and intensity of activity, physical activity beliefs and intentions.
Data on outcomes related to social cohesion e. UK Citizenship survey , cohesion measures , where reported. It is anticipated that there will be considerable heterogeneity in research design, method, population, outcomes and analysis.
This is likely to be due to factors such as the nature of the activities to the disciplinary origins of studies. In addition heterogeneity is expected to be related to the breadth of the aims and uses of the activities that will be potentially includable in the review, which will range from traditional community gardens developed to provide vegetables through to specific therapeutic interventions.
Therefore only where there is sufficient homogeneity between designs, methods, populations and outcomes will full meta-analysis be undertaken.
Meta-analysis will be used to inform wider conclusions regarding the impacts of the activities if there is sufficiently limited heterogeneity. Chi-Square tests will indicate heterogeneity and caution will be taken when applied to small sized studies.
As it is not possible to anticipate the nature and extent of the data available the potential effect modifiers cannot be identified a-priori. However it is expected that, if data allows, the impact of factors such as age, gender, length of engagement with intervention, and type, location and context of intervention will be considered; this is not an exhaustive list but indicative of the factors which may be relevant.
Titles and abstracts where available identified through the search process both academic and grey literature will be uploaded into EndNote, de-duplicated and double screened against the inclusion criteria by 2 reviewers RL, KH , and disagreements resolved through discussion or, where required, a third reviewer RG. Potentially includable studies will be obtained in full text then double screen by two reviewers RL and KH with disagreement resolved through discussion or with reference to the opinion of a third reviewer RG.
Data will be extracted into bespoke forms developed specifically for this review by two researchers RL and KH. For both quantitative and qualitative studies details regarding the intervention frequency, locations, nature of activities, theory etc. For quantitative studies specifics regarding study design and execution will be extracted, these will include: when outcomes were assessed, nature of controlling activities, allocation of participants to intervention or control groups, and potential confounders.
Specific data extracted from qualitative studies will include themes, concepts first and second order concepts will be clearly identified , and quotes identified by the authors of the studies. Appraisal of the quality and risk of bias of both quantitative and qualitative studies will be undertaken by two reviewers RL and KH , and disagreements resolved through discussion and, where necessary, a third reviewer RG.
The quality and any risk of biases will be considered during synthesis and where necessary included in reporting of the results. The quality and risk of bias in quantitative studies will be assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project tool [ 58 ].
The tool considers factors such as risk of selection bias, completion rates, study design, confounders, blinding, intervention integrity, and analytical robustness. If meta-analyses are undertaken publication biases will be explored using funnel plots.
Any potential sources of bias will be fully considered and discussed in the report. Where insufficient detail or missing data is found this will be requested from study authors. Where sets are missing data meta-analyses will be conducted in accordance with intention to treat analysis. If further data are not available or obtainable, analyses will be conducted but limitations and extent of missing data will be noted and highlighted in the report.
The quality of the conduct and reporting of the included qualitative studies will be assessed using the Wallace criteria [ 59 ]. This approach considers theoretical perspective, question, study design, context, sampling, data collection, analysis, reflexivity, generalisability and ethics. There is the potential that there will be certain biases associated with the studies considering community gardening activities. In particular it is likely that the origin of the research, which in some cases may not have academic origins or have been peer-reviewed, may introduce a bias.
The experience of the authors in undertaking previous reviews of similar activities suggest that a number of the studies may have been conducted by those delivering the intervention, this may represent a further source of bias. It is also likely that there will be significant shortcomings in the quality of reporting of method, intervention specifics and results. Additionally, funding for studies will also potentially come from organisations with a vested interest in community gardening and study authors may also be employed by these organisations.
Quantitative studies will be used to appraise the strength and direction of evidence of effect and, if possible, to produce more precise estimates of effect through random effects meta-analyses. Where the quantitative study design or outcomes are so heterogeneous as to preclude meta-analysis a narrative synthesis approach will be used [ 60 ].
Continuous data will be reported, where possible, using the original scale, in the form of means and standard deviations SD. Scales will be combined where appropriate and standardised mean differences SMDs calculated. Birds, bees, butterflies , spiders, and squirrels are all going to be appreciative of your gardening efforts. In an age where so many natural habitats have been bulldozed, gardening gives animals a place to feel comfortable and at home.
By planting trees and fragrant flowers, we can give something back to these critters, and enjoy their company and the benefits they provide. How to Prepare Soil for Gardening. What Is Soil Conservation? Everything You Need to Know. Green Matters is a registered trademark. All Rights Reserved. People may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Article continues below advertisement.
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