Introduction

Cities worldwide are increasingly challenged by the combined pressures of rapid urban expansion, ecological degradation, and the accelerating impacts of climate change. These dynamics contribute to biodiversity loss, intensify the urban heat island effect, and heighten flood risks, posing threats to both ecosystems and human well-being. In the European context, recent reviews of natural hazard risk assessment and management methodologies highlight that urban regions are particularly vulnerable to compound risks, where climate stressors intersect with land-use change and governance limitations1,2,3,4,5. These overlapping vulnerabilities underscore the urgency of developing frameworks that not only mitigate hazards but also build long-term resilience. Accordingly, measuring sustainability in human settlements has emerged as a central scientific and policy priority6,7. Within this agenda, nature-based solutions (NbS) are increasingly advanced as integrated approaches capable of addressing ecological, social, and economic pressures simultaneously8,9. NbS are increasingly central to sustainability agendas, including the European Green Deal and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals10,11.

Within the broader NbS framework, rewilding has emerged as a distinctive approach that emphasizes ecological processes and reduced human control. Rewilding strategies range from passive regeneration (allowing succession and natural processes to proceed with minimal intervention) to active interventions (such as species reintroductions, afforestation, or habitat reconnection). Urban rewilding adapts these strategies to densely populated contexts, where ecological recovery must coexist with governance, infrastructure, and social uses of space12,13,14. Unlike conventional greening or landscaping, urban rewilding emphasizes dynamic ecological change and semi-autonomous habitats, positioning it as a pathway to biodiversity enhancement, climate adaptation15, and inclusive urban resilience16,17.

Existing literature demonstrates how urban rewilding and related NbS are being embedded in European cities through a variety of planning tools, experimental interventions, and governance innovations. In London, the Urban Greening Factor provides a regulatory mechanism to quantify ecological performance at the parcel scale, embedding rewilding-oriented design criteria into planning approvals18. In Germany, cities such as Münster have advanced biodiversity-friendly greenspace management, incorporating reduced mowing regimes, meadow restoration, and citizen participation to normalize “wilder” aesthetics in formal parks19. In Dublin, biodiversity action planning explicitly frames rewilding as part of a municipal strategy to meet EU Habitat and Species Directives, showing how urban ecological management can be institutionalized through policy alignment20. In Zagreb, pilot programs for urban meadows have been implemented to foster native species richness, enhance pollinator networks, and create low-maintenance alternatives to traditional lawns21. Barcelona’s Nature Plan 2021–2030 represents one of the most ambitious city-scale initiatives in Europe, aiming to restore ecological connectivity, expand green infrastructure, and mainstream rewilding principles into urban resilience planning22,23.

Together, these cases demonstrate that rewilding is not limited to ecological experimentation, but can be institutionalized through metrics, planning instruments, and participatory governance frameworks. They highlight how urban rewilding is increasingly measured, evaluated, and justified in terms of ecosystem services, climate adaptation, and public health benefits, thereby linking it directly to sustainability transitions in human settlements24,25. Moreover, they show that public perception plays a critical role: programs in London, Münster, and Barcelona have each documented both enthusiasm and resistance, underscoring how rewilding success depends on negotiating trade-offs between ecological ambition, aesthetic acceptance, and social usability.

By contrast, comparable initiatives remain rare in Central and Eastern Europe, where structural legacies continue to shape the political and cultural feasibility of rewilding. Post-socialist cities often struggle with fragmented governance, uneven land-use transitions, and limited institutional capacity for experimental ecological management26,27,28. Greenspace planning has historically prioritized controlled, manicured landscapes, reflecting modernist design ideals and post-1990s redevelopment logics, which leaves little scope for spontaneous succession or unmanaged vegetation. Consequently, rewilding remains underexplored both in research and practice, and empirical evidence from these contexts is particularly scarce. Addressing this gap requires viewing rewilding not only as an ecological intervention but also as a socially mediated process, embedded in specific governance traditions, urban histories, and public attitudes.

Poland offers a critical test case for examining these dynamics. Since the 1990s, the country has undergone profound environmental transformation, shifting from centrally planned to decentralized, EU-aligned governance29,30,31. EU membership in 2004 introduced major environmental investments and regulatory reforms32, yet integrating ambitious ecological strategies into mainstream planning has proved difficult, especially where priorities intersect with housing demand, transport infrastructure, and car-centric development. Within this context, urban rewilding remains both underdefined and empirically underexamined. The absence of a shared conceptualization of rewilding—and of how it should be measured and operationalized in post-socialist cities—creates barriers to governance and policy uptake33,34,35.

Against this backdrop, Sopot provides a valuable case study. Positioned between the Baltic Sea and forested hinterlands, the city embodies post-socialist planning legacies while simultaneously advancing EU-driven sustainability agendas and fostering a strong tradition of local ecological engagement. This dual context makes it an ideal setting to explore how rewilding is understood and supported in practice. Building on this case, the paper investigates how urban rewilding is perceived, interpreted, and prioritized by two key stakeholder groups in Poland: municipal environmental officials nationwide and residents of Sopot, who evaluated visual scenarios of rewilded urban spaces.

  • RQ1: How do municipal environmental experts conceptualize urban rewilding strategies, including their ecological functions, governance feasibility, and policy priorities?

  • RQ2: How do residents of Sopot perceive visual scenarios of rewilded spaces, and what social–ecological values do they attach to them?

The working hypothesis is that experts and residents diverge in their views: experts are expected to emphasize ecological functionality, governance alignment, and planning feasibility, while residents may prioritize experiential, aesthetic, and cultural dimensions of urban rewilding. Such divergence reflects broader sustainability challenges: aligning systemic ecological ambitions with socially grounded perceptions in human settlements undergoing transition36,37.

By linking expert and public perceptions, this study provides new empirical evidence on urban rewilding in a post-socialist context, highlighting both opportunities and constraints. It advances debates on rewilding as a measurable strategy for sustainable urbanization, environmental justice, and circular land use, offering actionable insights for planners, policymakers, and civil society38,39. The study operationalizes rewilding strategies through three visual scenarios representing a continuum of ecological management: signature landscape (“minimal rewilding”), moderate rewilding, and intensive rewilding. These scenarios reflect varying degrees of human intervention and ecological autonomy—from conventional, ornamental greenspace to balanced designs allowing partial succession, and finally to naturalistic, low-management landscapes approaching urban wilderness. Standardized across contexts, the scenarios function as perceptual tools for evaluating how stakeholders interpret and support rewilding strategies.

Methods

Research context and design framework

Poland provides a distinctive setting for rewilding research, shaped by its post-socialist institutional legacy, fragmented land-use governance, and recent alignment with EU environmental directives40,41,42. These conditions have created both constraints and opportunities for embedding NbS into contemporary urban policy and planning frameworks.

This study investigates how urban rewilding is conceptualized, prioritized, and supported by different stakeholder groups in Poland. A mixed-method research design was employed, combining (1) a nationwide survey of municipal public officials engaged in environmental management, and (2) a community-based visual preference survey in Sopot, a mid-sized Baltic coastal city recognized for its strong sustainability agenda. Together, these approaches allow for triangulation of perspectives: expert views provide insight into governance and institutional feasibility, while community responses capture bottom-up attitudes toward ecological interventions. This dual lens enables a comprehensive assessment of how rewilding is positioned both in policy frameworks and everyday urban life43,44.

The case city of Sopot illustrates the potential of urban rewilding within a setting that already emphasizes ecological quality and civic participation. With more than 60% of its area designated as green space, Sopot has consistently prioritized ecological urbanism through biodiversity initiatives, native planting, and water-sensitive design. These efforts are reinforced by long-standing community engagement programs, such as the annual “Most Beautiful Property” competition, which celebrates sustainable landscaping and environmental stewardship. In 2024, Sopot ranked first in the national Healthy Cities Index among urban areas with fewer than 300,000 residents, earning top scores for environmental quality, health infrastructure, and sustainable urban living45.

This combination of proactive governance and a strong environmental identity makes Sopot a particularly relevant case for assessing the social feasibility of urban rewilding. Its mix of ecological assets, civic traditions, and planning commitments provides a meaningful setting for examining how residents and municipal officials interpret rewilding as an NbS. To ensure transparency and replicability, all survey instruments, datasets, and statistical outputs underpinning the methods and analysis are included as supplementary material and are publicly archived in the Figshare repository (DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27089560).

Expert survey of public officials

To investigate how urban rewilding is defined, interpreted, and operationalized within Polish municipal governance, a structured survey was conducted with public officials working in local government environmental departments during May and June 2024. The instrument consisted of 28 questions, divided into two complementary components: (1) open-ended items, designed to elicit grounded and context-specific definitions of “rewilding” and “urban rewilding”; and (2) closed-ended, Likert-scale items, aimed at capturing expert attitudes, perceived barriers, and the extent of alignment between rewilding practices and current urban policy frameworks.

Participants were recruited from a diverse range of municipalities, reflecting variation in geographic region, administrative scale, and environmental policy capacity46. To accommodate respondent availability and accessibility, the survey was administered via a multi-modal delivery strategy: in-person interviews (n = 7), telephone interviews (n = 10), completed survey forms returned via email (n = 9), and online survey submissions via the platform freeonlinesurveys.com (n = 6). Participation was voluntary, anonymous, and conducted independently of formal institutional affiliation. All respondents were provided with an overview of the research aims and consented to academic use of their responses.

The open-ended section of the survey focused on eliciting individual conceptualizations of rewilding and urban rewilding, as understood by professionals embedded within local governance structures. These responses were collated and analyzed qualitatively to construct a working definition of rewilding as it is emerging within the Polish municipal context. This approach directly addresses the observed lack of definitional clarity and consistency in Central and Eastern European rewilding discourses35,47,48,49, and enables the paper to contribute meaningfully to conceptual development in the field.

The second part of the survey included a series of Likert-scale questions structured around three thematic dimensions: (1) perceived benefits of urban rewilding (e.g. biodiversity, climate resilience, public health), (2) institutional and operational barriers to implementation, and (3) policy alignment with municipal urban planning and sustainability strategies50. The Likert-scale format enabled systematic quantification of expert attitudes, providing a clear view of dominant opinions and policy orientations across municipal environments51. This design also facilitated comparative analysis between respondents, allowing trends in ecological, social, and planning domains to be identified.

A total of 32 valid responses were collected—an appropriate size for exploratory policy research focused on targeted expertise in complex governance settings52,53. While the sample is not statistically representative of all municipal officials in Poland, it reflects a purposive cross-section of professionals working in environmental management, planning, and sustainability across municipalities of different sizes and governance structures. This diversity provides indicative insights into expert perspectives, though broader surveys would be required to capture the full range of governance views. The dual format of the survey enabled both quantitative analysis to assess the institutional feasibility and strategic relevance of urban rewilding, and qualitative synthesis to develop a context-specific definition that reflects how rewilding is being shaped by practice and policy in Poland. This integrated methodological approach deepens both the empirical grounding and conceptual contribution of the study, offering insights that are directly relevant to scholars, planners, and policymakers engaged with NbS in post-socialist urban contexts.

Community survey and visual scenario design

To complement the expert survey, a large-scale, community-level visual preference study was undertaken in Sopot. The study was designed to capture how residents perceive and evaluate alternative rewilding scenarios in urban environments that form part of their everyday lived experience. Sopot was selected as the case study city because of its distinctive combination of ecological vulnerabilities—including coastal erosion, localized urban heat stress, and stormwater challenges—and its proactive institutional commitment to sustainability within the context of a tourism-driven economy27,29,47. Geographically situated between the Baltic Sea coastline and the forested green belt of the Tricity Landscape Park, Sopot exemplifies the tensions and synergies between natural assets and ongoing development pressures, making it a particularly relevant setting for examining public attitudes toward ecological transformation and NbS.

A face-to-face visual survey was conducted with 1,000 residents, representing 2.85% of the city’s total population (35,049 inhabitants). The survey was quota-based and approximately stratified by age, gender, and neighborhood to provide broad socio-spatial coverage across Sopot, with stratification applied at the discretion of the enumerators to balance demographic representation54. Fieldwork was conducted between June and August 2024 by the last three authors, who were trained as enumerators. Each administered the survey in different parts of the city, ensuring broad geographical coverage and minimizing spatial bias in respondent selection. Respondents were recruited in diverse public locations, including residential neighborhoods, transit hubs, and commercial areas, which provided access to a wide cross-section of the population. To ensure eligibility, only residents of Sopot were invited to participate.

Each enumerator carried large poster-sized boards displaying the visual scenarios. Participants were first shown one scenario (bridge between buildings or central plaza, alternated between respondents to minimize order bias) and asked to indicate their preferred design option. The poster was then flipped to reveal the second scenario, and the same procedure was repeated. Responses were recorded manually, with no personal identifiers collected, ensuring participant anonymity. Enumerators were trained to provide clarification when needed, reducing interpretation bias and enhancing comprehension, particularly for older respondents or those less familiar with ecological terminology.

The two focal urban settings were carefully chosen for their symbolic and functional importance. The first involved a pedestrian bridge located within a park, emphasizing ecological corridors and small-animal habitats that could connect fragmented greenspaces. The second reimagined Sopot’s central civic plaza, transforming it from a highly formal, paved square into a vegetated urban commons. For both contexts, participants evaluated three digitally rendered alternatives reflecting a continuum of ecological intervention:

  • Signature landscape (“minimal rewilding”): controlled, ornamental plantings and manicured greenspaces typical of conventional municipal maintenance.

  • Moderate rewilding: more diverse planting schemes with pollinator-friendly species, low-structure habitats, and partial successional processes, while retaining visible design order and accessibility.

  • Intensive rewilding: densely vegetated, naturalistic landscapes with minimal human intervention, prioritizing ecological autonomy and approaching urban wilderness conditions.

The analysis prioritized perception trends over predictive modeling, in line with the exploratory and design-sensitive nature of visual preference research46. Visualizations followed best practices in visual social science, emphasizing interpretive transparency and audience engagement52,55.

All visual materials were created in Paint.NET (v. 5.1) using photographic source material from Sopot and comparable Polish greenspaces. Standardized templates for scale, layout, and composition were used to reduce visual bias, while layering and cutout techniques ensured ecological realism, architectural continuity, and cognitive legibility. These design choices were guided by established principles in environmental aesthetics and landscape perception56,57.

The survey thus operationalized theoretical debates on management versus non-management into a replicable visual tool. The explicit articulation of scenario assumptions—vegetation cover, canopy density, habitat structure, and visible order—ensured both transparency and comparability across contexts. Responses were systematically aggregated by scenario type and rewilding intensity, providing a robust quantitative dataset for subsequent statistical testing. At the same time, qualitative notes taken by enumerators offered valuable contextual observations on generational and spatial variations in preferences, which, while not statistically analyzed, informed the interpretation of results.

While every effort was made to ensure ecological realism and spatial accuracy, the visualizations were not intended to reproduce the full complexity of real-world ecological interventions. Instead, they were designed as standardized, photorealistic simulations that varied only in ecological intensity while holding constant the background architecture, seasonality, and spatial layout. This approach follows established practices in landscape perception and preference research, where the aim is to elicit comparative judgments rather than present fully realized renderings56,57,58,59. The simplification of ecological detail may reduce realism but enhances comparability, cognitive legibility, and methodological transparency, allowing responses to be attributed to differences in ecological treatment rather than unrelated visual features.

Since the study focused on two contrasting sites in Sopot—selected to capture differences between ecological and civic settings—its scope is necessarily limited. However, this exploratory design highlights context-specific preferences, as both locations are well-known and highly frequented by residents, ensuring that participants could easily recognize and relate to the scenarios. At the same time, the design provides a foundation for future studies employing broader site typologies and more advanced visualization methods. An example of the visual survey materials is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Source: Visual materials were produced using Paint.NET (v. 5.1). Original photographs, captured by the first author in May 2024, were digitally modified with graphic overlays to simulate rewilding interventions.

Digitally rendered visual scenarios used in the community survey to assess public preferences for urban rewilding in Sopot. The top images depict Scenario 1: a rewilded pedestrian bridge situated within a park, emphasizing the creation of small-animal habitats and vegetated ecological corridors. The bottom image illustrates Scenario 2: the rewilding of Sopot’s central plaza into a vegetated public commons.

Full size image

Data analysis

The data analysis was designed to reflect the study’s mixed-method framework, which combined expert interpretations of urban rewilding with community preferences for specific rewilding scenarios. Treating these two perspectives as complementary, rather than parallel, allowed for thematic convergence across methods and cross-comparison of findings. The analyses were structured in a way that ensured both quantitative rigor and qualitative depth, with results interpreted as exploratory but policy-relevant indicators of how urban rewilding is conceptualized and supported in the Polish context.

For the expert survey (N = 32), quantitative responses to categorical items were analyzed using descriptive and inferential approaches. Frequencies and distributions were first calculated to summarize expert positions on the inclusion of rewilding in municipal planning. Chi-square tests of independence were then applied to assess whether responses to Q19 (plans to include rewilding: Yes/No/Don’t know) varied systematically by local authority type, authority land-ownership size, age group, or gender. Given the relatively small sample, these results are interpreted with caution and reported as exploratory. Cramer’s V was included to indicate effect sizes and provide a standardized measure of association strength across categorical groupings.

Likert-scale responses (Q5–Q9) were analyzed separately to capture expert attitudes toward ecological benefits, institutional feasibility, and integration into urban policy frameworks. Because these items were measured on ordinal scales and the expert sample size was small, non-parametric methods were adopted. Kruskal–Wallis tests were employed for stratifiers with more than two groups (e.g., authority type, authority land-ownership size, and age group), while Mann–Whitney U tests were applied for binary comparisons such as gender. A significance threshold of p < 0.05 was used consistently. Effect sizes were reported as η² (Kruskal–Wallis) and r (Mann–Whitney), ensuring transparency in the interpretation of both significant and non-significant outcomes. These analyses provided a structured means of testing whether attitudes toward rewilding varied meaningfully across institutional or demographic categories.

In addition, open-ended responses from the expert survey were analyzed qualitatively using thematic synthesis60. Responses were inductively coded to identify recurring definitions, conceptual framings, and interpretations of “rewilding” and “urban rewilding.” Coding was refined iteratively, supported by word-frequency and co-occurrence checks, to ensure reliability and thematic saturation. This qualitative component added contextual depth, allowing for the development of grounded definitions of rewilding within Polish policy discourse, while also linking expert perceptions to broader governance debates.

For the community survey (N = 1,000 in Sopot), responses were aggregated for each of the two visual scenarios (bridge between buildings and central plaza). Preferences were recorded for three alternative design options representing different levels of ecological intervention: signature landscape (“minimal rewilding”), moderate rewilding, and intensive rewilding. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize distributions, followed by inferential testing to evaluate whether preferences differed significantly between the two scenarios. Chi-square tests of independence were applied, with statistical significance set at p < 0.05. Cramer’s V was calculated to assess effect sizes and indicate the strength of association between scenario type and preference distribution.

To ensure robustness, additional chi-square analyses were conducted to evaluate whether enumerator effects systematically influenced respondent choices. These checks confirmed that response patterns were not biased by data collection procedures, strengthening the validity of the preference results.

All quantitative analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics (v. 29)61. Results of inferential tests and descriptive tabulations are provided in the supplementary material, archived in the Figshare repository. By combining descriptive, inferential, and qualitative approaches, the analysis quantified preference distributions while also revealing the conceptual meanings and policy framings that stakeholders associate with rewilding. This mixed-methods strategy offers a robust evidence base for understanding how urban rewilding is socially and institutionally negotiated.

Ethical considerations

This study was conducted in full accordance with the ethical guidelines and regulations of the University of Gdansk, and the research protocol was reviewed and approved by the university’s Ethical Committee. The study also complies with relevant EU legislation, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki, and internationally accepted ethical standards for research involving human participants62,63.

Participation in both the expert and community surveys was entirely voluntary. All participants were informed of the study’s aims, assured of the confidentiality of their responses, and informed of their right to withdraw at any time without penalty. No personally identifiable information was collected.

For the expert survey, all responses were anonymized at source, and consent was obtained electronically prior to participation. For the community survey, informed verbal consent was obtained in person by trained enumerators prior to administering the questionnaire. Enumerators were specifically trained in ethical fieldwork practices, including how to explain the visual stimuli and ensure participant understanding and comfort. All responses from both data collections were anonymized before analysis.

Results

Expert perceptions of urban rewilding

The expert survey offered insights into how municipal officials across Poland understand, assess, and prioritize urban rewilding. Responses revealed broad ecological support but also pointed to persistent challenges around feasibility, governance, and integration into policy frameworks.

In the quantitative survey findings, descriptive results showed that most officials expressed some degree of endorsement for rewilding. When asked whether their municipality had concrete plans to include rewilding (Q19), responses varied by local authority type, land-ownership size, age, and gender. However, Chi-square tests of independence found no statistically significant associations between these stratifiers and reported plans, and effect sizes measured with Cramer’s V were consistently small, suggesting limited systematic variation across demographic or institutional groups. Attitudinal responses measured on Likert scales (Q5–Q9) highlighted general optimism about ecological outcomes but ambivalence about institutional feasibility. Non-parametric analyses were applied given the small sample size and ordinal response format. Kruskal–Wallis tests revealed no significant differences in perceptions across local authority types, land-ownership sizes, or age groups, and Mann–Whitney U tests similarly indicated no significant gender-based differences. Effect sizes were uniformly small, underscoring a broad consistency in attitudes regardless of demographic or institutional background.

The most consistent quantitative finding was the strong agreement on ecological and health benefits. A large majority of respondents stated that rewilding enhances biodiversity, air quality, and ecosystem services, while a similarly high proportion agreed that it contributes to climate resilience, especially in reducing urban heat island effects and improving stormwater management. Opinions were more divided when it came to feasibility and policy integration. Just over half of respondents agreed that urban rewilding could realistically be integrated into current municipal planning processes, while more than a quarter remained neutral and nearly a fifth disagreed, citing entrenched governance barriers. Only a minority reported that rewilding was already referenced in local biodiversity or development strategies, although a clear majority expressed optimism that it could be incorporated into future climate adaptation or green infrastructure programs. This divergence highlights a gap between widespread conceptual support and institutional readiness to act. Figure 2 illustrates this contrast, with strong consensus on ecological and social benefits but much greater variability in responses concerning feasibility and policy integration.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Expert agreement (%) on key dimensions of urban rewilding based on expert survey responses. Values reflect the proportion of respondents who agreed or strongly agreed with statements regarding ecological benefits, institutional feasibility, and alignment with current policy frameworks.

Full size image

Open-ended responses offered a richer understanding of how officials define and contextualize rewilding in Poland. Many experts described rewilding as the reintroduction of native species, the recovery of successional processes, and the enhancement of ecosystem services, using phrases such as “returning nature to its place” and “supporting ecological succession” to emphasize a restorative vision rooted in biodiversity enhancement. Others highlighted the links between rewilding and human well-being, emphasizing benefits such as health, recreation, and aesthetics, with several noting that rewilding could provide accessible green spaces, improve mental health, and foster environmental education for residents. At the same time, another group of responses focused on governance and feasibility, stressing challenges such as fragmented land ownership, bureaucratic inertia, funding shortages, and public skepticism toward “untidy” or less manicured landscapes. These officials acknowledged the symbolic and ecological value of rewilding but questioned its practical implementation under current municipal conditions.

These perspectives reveal a critical distinction between rewilding in its broader ecological sense and urban rewilding as a context-specific practice. While rewilding was often defined as the restoration of natural ecosystems through minimal human intervention, urban rewilding was seen as requiring strategic planning, infrastructure integration, and deliberate governance actions. Experts highlighted that the latter depends not only on ecological processes but also on social acceptability and policy frameworks. Figure 3 presents word clouds derived from expert definitions, illustrating both shared values such as biodiversity, restoration, and succession, and distinct emphases on planning, infrastructure, and community engagement that differentiate urban rewilding from wilderness-oriented approaches.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Conceptual differentiation of rewilding and urban rewilding based on expert definitions from the national survey. The word clouds highlight the most frequently used terms, revealing shared ecological themes—such as restoration, natural processes, and biodiversity—as well as distinct emphases. Rewilding (left) is associated with ecosystem self-regulation, minimal human intervention, and habitat recovery, while urban rewilding (right) emphasizes green infrastructure, public engagement, and the integration of ecological processes into built environments. Visuals were generated from qualitative coding of open-ended responses using WordCloud and Paint.NET (v. 5.1).

Full size image

Taken together, these findings indicate that municipal officials in Poland broadly endorse the ecological and social value of urban rewilding but perceive institutional, financial, and cultural barriers as significant obstacles to its uptake. The results suggest that advancing rewilding in Poland will require not only ecological design but also targeted governance reforms, capacity-building, and public communication strategies to bridge the gap between ambition and implementation.

Community preferences for urban rewilding scenarios

The community survey provided a systematic view of how residents of Sopot evaluate and prioritize urban rewilding interventions. By using standardized visual scenarios, the survey enabled residents to directly compare three levels of ecological intensity—signature landscape (“minimal rewilding”), moderate rewilding, and intensive rewilding—across two contrasting urban contexts. This design captured not only general preferences but also the extent to which support varies with location, function, and symbolic meaning of urban spaces.

In the bridge scenario, where rewilding was framed within a transitional, semi-public space, preferences leaned strongly toward moderate rewilding. A total of 58.7% of respondents selected this option, while 27.0% favored intensive rewilding and 14.3% preferred the signature landscape approach. The pattern indicates that residents generally support visible ecological enhancement that incorporates naturalistic vegetation, but without a full departure from spatial order and accessibility. The relatively high support for intensive rewilding nevertheless suggests that immersive ecological environments are not rejected outright and may be especially valued in spaces that already carry a hybrid social–ecological function, such as pedestrian corridors or semi-natural linkages.

In the central plaza scenario, which represented a highly symbolic and functionally central civic space, preferences shifted. Again, moderate rewilding was the most popular, endorsed by 47.9% of respondents. However, in this case, intensive rewilding attracted only 41.4% support, while the signature landscape option gained 10.7%. Compared with the bridge scenario, the distribution illustrates greater caution toward intensive ecological interventions in high-profile civic spaces. The plaza, as a formal and symbolic setting, appeared to elicit stronger concerns about aesthetics, usability, and cultural identity, which tempered enthusiasm for dense vegetation and ecological autonomy. Figure 4 visualizes these differences in distribution, highlighting both the broad appeal of moderate rewilding and the contextual sensitivity of support for intensive approaches.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Community preferences for urban rewilding scenarios in Sopot. Residents were asked to select among three design options—signature landscape approach (“minimal rewilding”), moderate rewilding, and intensive rewilding—for two proposed interventions: Scenario 1 (bridge between buildings) and Scenario 2 (central plaza). Moderate rewilding received the highest support across both scenarios, suggesting a strong public preference for visible ecological enhancement balanced with spatial structure and usability.

Full size image

Statistical testing confirmed that these scenario-based differences were meaningful. A chi-square test of independence showed that preferences for rewilding intensity differed significantly between the bridge and plaza scenarios (χ² = 63.48, df = 2, p < 0.001). The effect size, measured by Cramer’s V (0.178), indicated a small-to-moderate association, demonstrating that scenario framing exerted a real, if not overwhelming, influence on residents’ choices. This suggests that while the preference hierarchy (moderate > intensive > signature) was consistent across both contexts, the magnitude of support shifted systematically depending on whether the rewilding was envisioned in a peripheral or central location.

To test whether survey administration introduced bias, enumerator effects were also examined. For both the bridge and plaza scenarios, chi-square tests found no significant association between enumerator identity and participant responses (bridge: χ² = 5.18, df = 4, p = 0.27; plaza: χ² = 10.48, df = 4, p = 0.06). Effect sizes were small in both cases (Cramer’s V = 0.05 and 0.07, respectively), confirming that differences in surveyor style or interaction did not materially shape the preference distributions. These robustness checks provide additional confidence that the results reflect genuine community attitudes rather than procedural biases.

Moreover, although the community survey was not formally stratified by socio-demographic variables, qualitative notes recorded by the enumerators revealed emerging generational patterns that were consistent across all three observers. Younger respondents, approximately under the age of 30, appeared more inclined to favor intensive rewilding in both scenarios, whereas middle-aged and older participants more often preferred the moderate option. These observations suggest a potential generational shift toward greater openness to ecologically autonomous and less manicured urban landscapes, even if the differences did not reach statistical significance within the present dataset. In a similar vein, residents from peripheral neighborhoods displayed slightly higher acceptance of intensive rewilding, likely reflecting their closer proximity to, and greater familiarity with, semi-natural and forested environments surrounding Sopot.

Taken together, these findings demonstrate that residents of Sopot broadly support urban rewilding but that the form and intensity of this support are highly context-dependent. Moderate rewilding consistently emerged as the most socially acceptable strategy, striking a balance between ecological enhancement and spatial legibility. Intensive rewilding was welcomed in transitional or peripheral settings such as the bridge setting, but it faced more skepticism in central civic spaces where cultural expectations of order and usability remained strong. The signature landscape approach attracted the least support overall, suggesting limited enthusiasm for minimal interventions that reproduce conventional ornamental greenspace management.

The results underscore two key insights. First, community support for urban rewilding is not static but varies systematically with spatial framing, demonstrating the importance of tailoring rewilding strategies to the symbolic and functional characteristics of specific urban sites. Second, the strong receptivity to both moderate and, in certain contexts, intensive rewilding indicates a public willingness to move beyond conventional greenspace paradigms, provided that interventions are communicated clearly and designed with sensitivity to local identity. In this sense, the Sopot case highlights how visual preference methods can generate actionable indicators for aligning ecological ambition with social feasibility in post-socialist European cities.

Discussion

This study provides new empirical evidence on how urban rewilding is defined, interpreted, and prioritized in a post-socialist context, drawing on insights from municipal experts across Poland and community preferences in Sopot. The findings highlight both convergences and tensions in how rewilding is understood as an NbS, underscoring its potential to advance sustainability transitions while also exposing institutional and social constraints to its implementation.

Experts broadly conceptualized rewilding as the restoration of ecological processes with limited human intervention, while urban rewilding was framed as a more guided process that integrates biodiversity and ecosystem services into urban form through policy frameworks, planning tools, and community engagement. This perspective aligns with scholarship emphasizing that institutionalization of rewilding requires balancing ecological ambition with governance feasibility38,64,65. Residents, in turn, expressed consistent support for moderate rewilding across both scenarios, demonstrating receptivity to enhanced biodiversity and ecological structure but favoring designs that maintain usability, order, and legibility in the urban fabric. This mirrors perception studies which argue that public acceptance of naturalized landscapes depends on the visible balance between ecological richness and perceived order56,57. Comparative insights from European cities such as London, Barcelona, Münster, Zagreb, and Helsinki also indicate that while citizens welcome ecological interventions, support is often contingent on maintaining civic usability, symbolic identity, and perceived safety18,19,23,66. Moreover, a recently published multi-city study in Pennsylvania using a similar scenario-based methodology reinforced these patterns, showing that across diverse urban contexts, public preferences consistently clustered around moderate rewilding when scenario design was standardized58. This cross-Atlantic parallel underscores the robustness of scenario-based approaches for capturing social–ecological trade-offs and highlights the broader generalizability of community receptivity to balanced, context-sensitive rewilding strategies.

At the same time, the findings underscore enduring governance challenges for embedding rewilding into urban policy and planning frameworks, particularly in Poland and similar post-socialist contexts. Land-use legacies, fragmented authority structures, path-dependent planning practices, and limited institutional capacity remain obstacles to experimental ecological management and ambitious rewilding interventions. This aligns with research on NbS adoption in Central and Eastern Europe, where ecological priorities often compete with car-centric planning, redevelopment pressure, and constrained municipal budgets26,27,28. However, comparative cases from Western Europe show that governance barriers can be partially overcome when municipal agencies adopt adaptive planning strategies, build cross-sectoral coalitions, and actively engage civil society36,67. In Helsinki, for instance, residents have resisted near-natural management in highly symbolic civic spaces, but participatory planning has enabled more ambitious ecological designs in peripheral or semi-natural areas66.

Similarly, Moxon et al.16 emphasize that behavioral motivations, opportunity structures, and smaller, receptive governance units (e.g., local wards, neighborhood councils) can serve as entry points for rewilding, even in contexts where higher-level planning remains fragmented. The ambivalence observed in expert responses—strong conceptual support but more cautious assessments of feasibility—captures this dual reality: decentralization may allow flexibility, but unless matched by coordination, funding, and capacity, fragmentation persists. Addressing these tensions requires adaptive governance that supports local experimentation, cross-sectoral collaboration, and meaningful public participation — a trajectory echoed in recent NbS literature36,67,68,69.

The study also adds to understanding how residents perceive ecological change in managed urban spaces. The preference for moderate rewilding in Sopot resonates with findings from Europe and North America where citizens favor near-natural green space management but often impose limits driven by safety, aesthetics, and cultural expectations19,58,66,70,71. The slightly lower support for intensive rewilding in the central plaza compared to the bridge scenario demonstrates that spatial context and symbolic importance of places matter: public acceptance shifts when design interventions are located in civic or high-use symbolic spaces. This reflects broader evidence that greenspace accessibility, perceived maintenance costs, and the visibility of ecological processes are decisive moderators of support65,67,72. Comparative insights from Barcelona, London, and Zagreb likewise show that rewilding efforts are embraced most readily when ecological benefits are clearly communicated and paired with tangible public amenities18,21,22.

A further consideration concerns the visualization method itself. The photographic simulations, while standardized for ecological realism, inevitably simplify the complexity of urban interventions. This limitation is common in visual preference studies, where the aim is to present controlled contrasts of ecological intensity rather than detailed design renderings57,59. Although some images may have seemed stylized, this standardization ensured that responses reflected rewilding intensity rather than unrelated visual cues. The focus on two sites—a peripheral pedestrian bridge and the central plaza—was a deliberate choice to capture contrasts between semi-natural and civic settings. While this limits generalization, it strengthens insight into how context shapes receptivity. Future research should expand to additional urban typologies and use more sophisticated visualization tools (e.g., 3D models or virtual reality) to enhance realism and test robustness across cities.

Several limitations of the research should be acknowledged. The expert survey, while geographically broad, included only 32 respondents. This modest sample size limits the statistical power of group comparisons and cannot claim to represent the entire population of municipal officials in Poland. Instead, the findings should be understood as exploratory and indicative of trends among environmental professionals. The inclusion of officials from municipalities of different sizes and land-ownership structures partially mitigates this limitation by ensuring institutional diversity, but broader surveys with larger samples would be required to fully capture the spectrum of governance perspectives. The community survey, although robust in scale (N = 1,000), was confined to one city and employed hypothetical visual scenario prompts, which do not fully capture the lived textures of implemented rewilding projects. Qualitative observations from enumerator notes suggested younger respondents may lean more toward intensive rewilding, but generational or spatial differences could not be statistically validated in the current design. Future work should extend this approach to multiple cities, include longitudinal designs to track attitude shifts over time, and employ mixed methods that combine visual preference, participatory approaches, and actual implementation outcomes. Comparative and temporal studies—already underway in cities like London, Barcelona, and Helsinki—demonstrate how multi-scalar and participatory approaches can reveal shifting values and deepen understanding of NbS acceptance23,65,66. Expanding such approaches into Central and Eastern Europe would allow stronger generalizability and comparative insight.

In sum, the Polish case demonstrates that urban rewilding is recognized by both experts and residents as ecologically beneficial and socially desirable, but its practical uptake depends on carefully balancing biodiversity gains with functionality, governance feasibility, and public legitimacy. Rather than radical unmanaged wilderness, urban rewilding in post-socialist settings appears most viable as a calibrated, context-aware strategy of ecological reintegration. When situated alongside experiences from London, Barcelona, Münster, Zagreb, and Helsinki, the results suggest that rewilding is most likely to succeed where governance structures are adaptive, communication is clear, and interventions are aligned with cultural expectations of order and usability. As environmental and social pressures intensify, rewilding offers a promising NbS pathway toward resilience, inclusivity, and nature-integrated urban futures. However, realizing this potential will require governance innovation, participatory design, and comparative learning across contexts to bridge the gap between conceptual support and institutional implementation.

Conclusion

This study offers one of the first empirical examinations of urban rewilding in Poland, integrating the views of municipal experts with the visual preferences of Sopot residents. The results reveal broad support for rewilding’s ecological and social benefits—enhancing biodiversity, climate resilience, and public well-being—yet also underscore the need to balance these ambitions with institutional and cultural realities. Experts acknowledged rewilding’s potential but highlighted barriers of fragmented governance, limited resources, and entrenched planning legacies. Residents, meanwhile, favored moderate rewilding across both scenarios, valuing ecological richness while also prioritizing usability, visual order, and civic identity. These findings suggest that urban rewilding is not conceived as a retreat from management but as a strategic reintegration of ecological processes into the urban fabric. Support, however, is context-sensitive: intensive interventions were more acceptable in peripheral or semi-natural areas than in symbolic civic spaces, indicating that successful rewilding must be spatially differentiated and attuned to local perceptions.

The results also point to the need for adaptive governance frameworks that can bridge the gap between conceptual enthusiasm and practical implementation. While fragmented governance structures in post-socialist cities present barriers, they may also create openings for local experimentation and cross-sectoral collaboration. Building on these opportunities will require participatory processes, targeted policy integration, and public communication strategies that normalize less manicured, more ecologically autonomous landscapes. Comparative evidence from other European contexts reinforces these insights, demonstrating that resident perceptions of near-natural greenspace management are strongly shaped by aesthetics, safety, and cultural meaning14,19,66,70,71,73. Embedding Polish experiences within this broader international debate strengthens the case for rewilding as a flexible but socially mediated pathway toward sustainability transitions.

Future research should expand this dual-method approach to other cities, track how attitudes shift over time, and integrate participatory tools that capture both visual preferences and lived experiences of rewilded spaces. This study demonstrates that urban rewilding is viewed as both ecologically valuable and socially acceptable, provided interventions are tailored to governance capacities and community values. By systematically combining expert and community perspectives, it fills a critical gap in the literature and offers a transferable framework for guiding context-sensitive rewilding strategies that advance biodiversity, resilience, and social well-being.