Nature Connectedness as a Risk Factor for Psychological Distress After Environmental Disasters: Insights from the 2024 Attica Wildfires

Abstract

Nature connectedness, the construct that describes how close we feel to the rest of the natural world, has been studied extensively in the past decade. There have been well-evidenced prior studies showing a positive correlation between nature connectedness and wellbeing in both children and adults, as well as sustainable attitudes and behaviour towards the environment. What has not been studied as well to date is the potential for nature connectedness to contribute to levels of distress and other negative emotions in the presence of the climate crisis and environmental disasters. This study analysed results from a sample of Greek speaking adults, collected in the 14 days after the 2024 Attica wildfires. We examined the relationship between respondents’ experience of the event, and the associations between respondents’ nature connectedness and resultant psychological distress. We found that higher nature connectedness was associated with higher psychological distress in people who had experienced forest fires. We believe that future research on nature connectedness needs to take into account the potential for psychological distress in the face of ongoing environmental disasters and the climate crisis.