How Duration of Stay and PTSD Impact Engagement with Natural Beauty in a Mountain Population

This study compares engagement with natural beauty in people who live in mountains and people who visit mountains occasionally. It also analyses the effect of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to floods on engagement with natural beauty, in the affected population (here, survivors of Uttarakhand floods). The constructs were measured using Engagement with Natural Beauty (ENB) scale (Diessner et al, 2008) and Screening Questionnaire for Disaster Mental Health (SQD) (Fujii et al, 2007). Findings reveal that 1) Mountain based people have a lower engagement with natural beauty than non-mountain based people, 2) Experiencing PTSD from floods lowers engagement with natural beauty in mountain based people. These findings implicate the need to incorporate mental health in disaster rehabilitation programs, failure of which shall lead to a disengagement of the resident population from their landscape. This may result in increased migration post natural disaster, and a decrease in environmental concern among survivors.