Influence of urban lakescapes in mitigation of mental fatigue of city dwellers: with special reference to south west Beira, Diyawanna, and Kandy lake

Abstract

The "urban lakescape" can be interpreted as a place where there is water and natural features in an urban setting. Mental fatigue mainly caused by urban-related causes is a major concern for the well-being of city dwellers. This study hypothesizes that the lakescapes can play a role in minimizing the mental fatigue of city dwellers by providing a restorative environment. Therefore, this study focuses on identifying a set of urban lakescape attributes in urban waterbodies in two main cities in Sri Lanka (Colombo and Kandy) that can contribute to lowering mental fatigue. City dwellers’ behavioral qualities and the above-mentioned attributes were used to formulate a theoretical framework to assess the impact of these elements on reducing mental fatigue. A pilot study was carried out to identify the case study areas and three case studies (Colombo suburbs, Colombo inner city, Kandy inner city) were selected. The field study consisted of photographs, map analysis, and site observations to identify the influential factors on mental fatigue that were presented in the lakescape. A questionnaire was used to identify their level of mental fatigue and how it was affected by the lake scapes. The results indicate that existing characteristics of lakescapes generally mitigate the mental fatigue of city dwellers. However, some characteristics (water quality, visual naturalness of water) need to be improved and some characteristics (sceneries of densified built forms) need to be minimized. On this basis, it is recommended that a design strategy be used to develop lakescapes by largely maintaining the existing characteristics but improving the necessary characteristics as mentioned above to strengthen the positive mood states and minimize the mental fatigue of the city dwellers