Understanding the relational values between people and nature through the observation of virtual communities

Maintaining people's relational values is critical to counteract the degradation of nature and the "extinction of experiences" inherent to an ever more urban society. Virtual communities are hubs for people to communicate worries for, perceptions of, and interactions with and within nature in a multimedia manner (e.g. through photos, tags, texts, etc.). Virtual communities are also arenas to collectively construct, negotiate and reproduce relational values at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales, and thereby can serve as a cornerstone for sustainable global transitions. We are only at the very beginning of the assessment and interpretation of relational values expressed in the online space. This chapter focuses on the use of crowdsourced social media data to understand relational values ascribed to green infrastructure, first outlining the state-of-the-art, then showing insights from recent studies at different scales (the region of Catalonia, the Province of Barcelona and Barcelona City) and finally indicating key opportunities and challenges for a field of study that is quickly emerging.