Nature and Mental Health: An Ecosystem Service Perspective

Human well-being is linked to the natural environment in myriad ways, and actionable understanding of these links is deepening in diverse disciplines. Many of the contributions of living nature (diversity of organisms, ecosystems, and their processes) to people’s quality of life can be referred to as “ecosystem services.” They include water purification, provision of food, stabilization of climate, protection from flooding, and many others. Worldwide, major efforts are underway to bring ecosystem services and their values into policy, finance, and management.