Blue space geographies:Enabling health in place

Drawing from research on therapeutic landscapes and relationships between environment,health and wellbeing, we propose the idea of ‘healthy blue space’ as an important new development Com plementing research on healthy green space,blue space is defined as; ‘health-enabling places and spaces, where water is at the centre of arange of environments with identifiable potential for the promotion of human well being’. Using theoretical ideas from emotional and relational geographies and critical un derstandings of salutogenesis,the value of blue space to health and well being is recognised and eval uated. Six individual papers from five different countries consider how health can be enabled in mixed blue space settings.Four sub-themes;embodiment,inter-subjectivity,activity and meaning,document multiple experiences within a range of healthy blue spaces.Finally,we suggest a considerable research agenda – theoretical, methodological and applied – for future work within different forms of blue space. All are suggested as having public health policy relevance in social and public spac