In recent years, the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, irregular closed school life and frequent online teaching have negatively impacted the mental health and academic performance of many college students. Doing horticultural activities is an effective way to promote physical and mental health and enhance academic performance. This paper explores the relationship between horticultural activities participation, academic self-efficacy and positive mental characters under the perspective of disciplinary integration, with a view to promoting the mental health status and academic performance of college students and the application of horticultural therapy on college campuses. Questionnaires such as the Positive Mental Characters Scale for Chinese College Students (PMCS-CCS) and Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES) are used to investigate 160 college students from four universities in China. The results show that horticultural activity participation is significantly positively correlated with academic self-efficacy (r = 0.345; p < 0.01) and positive mental characters (r = 0.298; p < 0.01), and horticultural activity participation can positively affect positive mental characters (B = 0.135, p < 0.01). At the same time, academic self-efficacy has a partial mediating effect between horticultural activity participation and positive mental characters. Universities can actively carry out campus horticultural activities to enhance students’ horticultural activity participation, which in turn promotes academic self-efficacy and further enhances the positive psychological level of college students.

Water shortages and pollution in China are severe situations caused by rapid economic development and urbanization. The current water-conservation policies focus on implementing new technologies and management strategies at important spatial nodes while neglecting the significance of the response from the community and the public. In this paper, the elements that influence the public participation of water conservation within the community are analyzed and divided into three levels: the internal world elements of the residents, the different individual characters of the residents, and external world elements. Among these three levels, the internal world element level, including the desire to realize oneself, is crucial, as it will significantly strengthen an individual's participation activity once motivated. Based on Maslow's five-level theory of human needs, to establish a model of public participation in water-conservation communities, economic benefits, environmental improvement benefits, and the self-fulfilling satisfaction of participation will become the motivation for the model to function. In a new project, reclaimed water landscapes are established in the community, and eco-recreational activities with water-conservation themes are organized to guide and encourage public participation to foster water-conservation consciousness and to establish aging water-conservation guiding policies and implementation methods in the community.

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate virtual reality restorative environments (VRREs)’ impact on university students’ mental well-being, investigate factors affecting VRRE perception and psychological recovery, understand virtual environments’ healing mechanisms, and provide recommendations for university virtual healing spaces. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 participants to develop a VRRE perception evaluation system with five core and fourteen main categories. The system was then used to assess 13 virtual natural environments. Mental recovery effects were measured among 44 university students using the Schulte test (attention), Positive and Negative Affection Scale (mood), and physiological sensors (stress). Results: VRREs demonstrated significant positive effects on participants’ psychological recovery. Different virtual environments showed varying impacts on attention, negative affect, and stress levels, while effects on positive affect were consistent across environments. Virtual extraterrestrial space environments yielded the strongest improvements in attention and stress reduction, whereas mixed forest settings were most effective in decreasing negative affects. Structural equation modeling revealed that participants’ VRRE perceptions significantly influenced psychological recovery through seven of fifteen pathways. Conclusions: VRREs represent an effective intervention for supporting university students’ mental well-being. Different virtual environments offer distinct psychological benefits, with environment perception playing a crucial role in recovery outcomes. These findings provide valuable insights for designing targeted virtual healing spaces in university settings.

The indoor healing landscape has a positive influence on people’s mind and physical health, indicated from the studies. This research aims to discuss the residents’ emotional problems during the home quarantine under the context of COVID-19 and put forward the strategies to construct a residential indoor healing landscape system based on disaster psychology, which is conducive to relieve residents’ emotional problems. Firstly, the general introduction includes the adverse effects on residents’ minds and physical health from major public health emergencies and the function of indoor healing landscape; secondly, the questionnaires are used to discover the residents’ emotional problems during the epidemic; finally, the strategies to construct the residential indoor healing landscapes are put forward to therefore regulate residents’ mind and physical health during home quarantine and working and living at home after the epidemic.