Urban Water Features: Their Sound and Effect on Human Restoration and Physiology
Urban water features shape more than visual experience—they create distinct soundscapes that may influence restoration, stress recovery, and physiological response in urban environments.
Proposed movement path through the virtual environment, showing how participants experience the study setting in a controlled sequence.
What do different water sounds do for people in urban places?
This study uses virtual reality to examine how the psychoacoustic qualities of urban water features may affect restoration, stress recovery, and physiological response.
Views within the virtual environment
Different water-feature soundscapes may produce measurable physiological changes, offering design insight for more restorative urban bluespaces.
Views of the virtual environment showing the relationship between planting, seating, circulation, and the overall environmental character of the study space
This study investigates how the soundscape of different urban water features may influence restoration and stress recovery through measurable physiological responses.
Findings may help landscape architects design bluespaces that better support restoration and well-being.
The Psychoacoustic Variables of Urban Water Features and Their Effect on Human Restoration and Physiology
Are urban water features designed and installed only for the sake of aesthetic, ecological, or semantic reasons? While visual stimulation, environmental benefits, and personal associations cannot be ignored, an understudied area of research is the soundscape created by these water features and the physiological changes effecting restoration and stress recovery that they can create. Different urban water features generate different soundscapes varying in psychoacoustic variables which include sharpness, fluctuation strength, loudness, and roughness, and these audible characteristics may cause discernable physiological changes in humans. Furthermore, many of these physiological changes are related to stress reduction and recovery. Laro-Wright et al. (2016) described that “there is no known research on the effect of nature sound alone on health-related outcomes,” stating that previous research had seemingly only focused on self-reported psychological evaluations (Largo-Wright, O’Hara, Chen, 2016). More recently, there has been an increase in physiological studies pertaining to the effects of nature sounds (Engel et al., 2021) such as bird songs, wind, and water (Michels, Hamers, 2023). Using virtual reality, this thesis will explore physiological and perceptual changes associated with restoration wrought by the soundscape of different urban water features. The results of this exploration may provide guidance to landscape architects when making design choices surrounding water features and emphasize the importance of particular soundscapes which are essential to restoration and stress recovery (Hubbard, Kimball, 1929; Michels, Hamers, 2023). Findings may lead to suggestions and considerations for practitioners when designing bluespaces to maximize the restorative impact of the acoustics.