Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Earth Observation Center (EOC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen and our Earth Observation Research Cluster of the University of Würzburg teamed up for a study on decoding stress in urban public spaces. The paper titled “Healing the city: a diagnostic approach to decoding stress in urban public spaces” was just published in the journal Cities & Health by Nina Haug, Hannes Taubenböck, Peter Zeile and Markus Neppl.

Here is the abstract of the paper: Massive structural interventions and rising density pressures have made urban public spaces increasingly perceived as stressful. From a human perspective, they frequently lack attractiveness. In response to this loss of significance, the method presented here introduces a diagnostic approach to identifying the causes of stress in urban public spaces, which have long remained a Black box in urban research. It provides planners with a tool to assess how dense urban areas are perceived and experienced by people. The diagnostic part of the approach involves identifying the causes of individual stress reactions through a systematic analysis of various measurable and observable characteristics of urban public space. As a key innovation, it integrates quantifiable hard factors with qualifiable soft factors within a unified analytical framework. The method organises the findings in a Stressor Matrix, facilitating a systematic evaluation of urban environments. The method’s core principles and components are presented based on a case study in the German city of Würzburg, one of five analysed case studies of this paper. Finally, it presents initial insights into six neuralgic stress-inducing factors, which are shopfront zones, public space elements, street space organisation, traffic, parking and acoustics.

Here is the link to the full paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2025.2571264  

This research is an outcome of the doctoral thesis of Nina Haug: https://remote-sensing.org/successful-phd-defense-by-nina-haug/