The Response and Resilient Recovery Strategic Science Initiative (R3SSI) aims to inform policy-makers and community leaders across the U.S on critical decision-making for crisis response and future recovery related to COVID-19. During the activity, experts create scenarios as a strategic tool to allow decision-makers to invest resources to prevent a long-term legacy of problems that cascade, in this case, from the virus, to people's health, to society, to national economies, and even to global political stability.

For this R3SSI new activity, a Strategy Group will focus on the impacts of the pandemic on access and use of ecosystem services in the built environment. Specifically, the Strategy Group will (1) garner information on the physical and mental health benefits of interacting with natural spaces before and during the pandemic, as well as the consequences of disparities in accessing these natural spaces during the pandemic, and (2) use scenario planning methodologies, such as visioning and backcasting, to propose immediate, short-term, and deep structural interventions that can maximize the health, social, and economic benefits of access to natural spaces and the ecosystem services they provide. The scenario planning exercise will take place during a workshop with participants selected by the Strategic Group.

Social distancing practices have highlighted the need for and unequal access to green infrastructure in urban/peri-urban environments and the services they provide, with consequences for mental and physical health. The findings from our scenario-based strategic activity will help inform decision makers and leaders at the national, state, and community levels, as they consider innovative and new ways to mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and prevent a cascade of negative social, health and economic impacts, while designing or building for future generations.