Development of an Evaluation Index for Forest Therapy Environments

Most research on forest therapy has examined the therapeutic effects of forest activity development. There has been insufficient research identifying and evaluating the forest therapy environment. This study aimed to derive a representative forest therapy environment from each of the four evaluation sites, comprising national luxury forests; Scopus, PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, RISS, and DBpia were searched, and 13 studies evaluating forest therapy environments were analyzed and synthesized. After conducting a Conformity Evaluation, one layer of items, comprising anions with low conformity scores, was excluded, and six field measurements, phytoncide, oxygen, illuminance, UV-rays, sound, and anion, were added to increase objectivity. Finally, five forest therapy environment categories and 25 detailed items were derived. Analytic Hierarchy Process-based importance was evaluated to calculate the weight between the final evaluation items. According to the site evaluations, the categories of landscape, forest air, sunlight, sound, and anions appeared, in that order. This study is significant as it developed evaluation items and rating criteria for forest therapy environments, applied these in the field, and derived representative forest therapy environments for each location. This study developed indicators, provided basic data for establishing a therapy environment management plan, and there recommendations were made for an environment suitable for visitors and customizing forest welfare and therapy services.