Introduction: Rapid urbanisation exacerbates psychological stress and diseases, highlighting the critical role of urban forests in mitigating health challenges. Beyond aesthetic value, these landscapes function as vital ecological systems that support wellbeing. Yet, the mechanisms through which their ecological, colour, and spatial attributes determine restorative potential remain inadequately understood. Methods: This study employed an integrated Structural Equation Model-Interpretative Structural Model-Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (SEM-ISM-DEMATEL) methodology to systematically analyse these influencing factors. Research conducted in Kunming, China, integrated quantitative Hue, Saturation, Value model (HSV) colour analysis of plant communities across seasons with human-factors experiments. The experimental design incorporated psychological scales, physiological monitoring, and eye-tracking to comprehensively evaluate restorative outcomes. Results: Ecological features and Perceived Restorative Experience (PRE) were identified as primary direct drivers of health benefits. Green-dominated landscapes significantly mitigated visual fatigue and enhanced physiological relaxation, while warm colours provided complementary arousal effects. Spatial features influenced restoration only indirectly through PRE mediation. The ISM-DEMATEL analysis further categorised key elements: Plant Species Richness and Plant Health & Phenology as fundamental drivers; Vegetation Stratification Richness and Colour Diversity as high-centrality transmission hubs; Seasonal Colour Expression as a pivotal element; and Landscape Aesthetic and Canopy Skyline Rhythm as core outcome indicators. Discussion: This study pioneers a sequential SEM-ISM-DEMATEL framework that shifts analytical focus from outcomes to underlying causal mechanisms, enabling identification of key drivers within complex landscape systems. The findings demonstrate that highly restorative landscapes require both robust ecological foundations and carefully designed perceptual experiences. Practically, this necessitates a management paradigm shift towards systemic synergy: prioritising high cause-degree ecological and colour elements, and employing strategic planting to maintain year-round benefits. The research provides actionable insights for optimising planting design to fully realise the health benefits of urban forests, thereby supporting their resilience and role in fostering sustainable, healthy cities.

Urbanization has amplified the critical role of urban green spaces in enhancing public health and well-being. While natural landscape elements are known to influence physiological and psychological states through visual perception, their mechanistic pathways remain underexplored, and existing studies often focus on singular environments. This study examines how specific landscape elements affect public health and proposes optimization strategies for urban green space planning. Focusing on five green space types in Kunming (forests, wetlands, urban parks, street green spaces, and residential green spaces), this study employed PSPNet-based semantic segmentation to quantify landscape elements and conducted human–subject experiments using paired visual stimuli. Physiological metrics and psychological questionnaires were analysed to assess health outcomes. Key findings reveal that forests and urban parks, rich in natural elements (Plant and Earth and Mountain Elements), outperformed artificial-dominated spaces (residential/street green spaces) in physiological and psychological restoration. Artificially designed green spaces achieved benefits comparable to natural counterparts when mimicking natural element composition. Notably, aggregated indices (naturalness, artificiality, and enclosure) showed negligible correlations with health outcomes, underscoring the primacy of specific elements. The Plant and Earth and Mountain Elements mediated physiological recovery, while minimizing the Building and Artificial Element and enhancing the Sky Element exposure improved attention coherence. Excessive Water Element perception impaired heart rate stabilization, while psychological restoration mechanisms were multifaceted but were consistently linked to higher natural element proportions. These results provide actionable guidelines for optimizing visual proportions of natural elements in urban green space planning and management.

Urban forests are important public recreation sites and play an important function in urban biodiversity conservation. Recent studies have found that urban forests have a beneficial effect on public physiological and psychological health. Birdsong in urban forests has good physiological and psychological recovery benefits and is also the most frequent natural sound. In this paper, a blank group, visual perception, and audiovisual perception were studied by investigating birds in five kinds of urban forests and simulating their birdsong environment. The results showed the following: (1) The visual perception and audiovisual perception of urban forests are restorative to the public’s physiology and psychology. Forests and urban parks with higher natural elements have relatively strong physiological and psychological recovery benefits, and roadside green spaces with higher artificial elements have relatively weak recovery benefits. However, both natural and artificial urban forests can show better recovery. (2) Birdsong perception preference has a mediating effect on the recovery benefit of heart rate and a moderating effect on the recovery benefit of skin conductance, which can affect the recovery benefits of urban forests on public physiology and psychology. (3) Because people’s perceptions of the timbre of birdsong vary, the benefits of birdsong on recovery are not always favorable. The richness and pleasantness of birdsong in the forest environment are significant contributors to the recovery advantages and the likability and comfort of birdsong in the rest of the setting. Based on differences in the composition of birds in different urban forest environments, this study simulated the birdsong environment with birds based on field research and studied the public perception recovery of the urban forest visual environment and the urban forest and birdsong audiovisual environment in order to explore the influence of birdsong on the public health recovery properties of urban forests. This study provides an optimal strategy for the selection and construction of forest healing functions and promotes the development of urban ecosystems and biodiversity.

As global populations concentrate in high-density settlements, urban forests gain prominence as integrated socio-ecological systems. Within contemporary urbanization, waterfront greenways have beco...