Urban Nature Together Web-App for Nature Education: An Augmented-Reality-Based Approach to Enhancing Public Awareness and Imagination of Urban Biodiverse Green Spaces

Despite their recognised potential, digital technologies remain underutilised in Nature-based Solutions (NbS) participatory planning due to limited interactivity, usability, and flexibility in supporting meaningful citizen engagement in urban planning. Immersive digital approaches, such as Augmented Reality (AR), have demonstrated potential to strengthen public engagement and enhance human-nature relational values by making ecological topics more tangible and interactive to the public.

This study introduces Urban Nature Together, an interactive web-app designed to engage citizens in learning about and imagining biodiverse green spaces in their cities. The web-app combines two key features: a biodiversity perception survey, which invites citizens to assess and score the biodiversity of nearby public spaces through photo submissions and their perceived biodiversity; and an AR design feature, which allows participants to explore underused spaces in cities and to visualise and digitally add plants into real-world urban settings. Together, these features aim to explore how digital interaction can enhance citizens’ understanding, perception, and awareness of urban biodiversity.

Workshops were conducted in selected neighbourhoods in Heidelberg, Germany and Dublin, Ireland, to test the tool’s effectiveness in promoting nature education and awareness of biodiverse green spaces. Preliminary findings indicate that participants found the AR visualisation intuitive and inspiring, helping them imagine biodiverse green spaces and learning about their biodiversity value in cities. The biodiversity perception survey helped them be more aware of local ecological value, changed their understanding of surrounding biodiversity, and motivated them to contribute to greening initiatives. Our findings provide evidence that immersive, user-friendly digital tools can raise public awareness of nature and support for NbS implementation through active participation. 

However, several limitations are present in AR technological applications, including limited precision in location detection and element placement, which may demotivate participants from using the digital tools. Moreover, it is challenging to involve senior citizens in digital-tool-driven participatory planning, indicating the need for future studies to investigate potential solutions, such as providing technical guidance and assistance for senior participants during on-site workshop engagement.