Decker Lake Project.
NHH-UT worked with Get Healthy Utah, Healthy West Valley, and Salt Lake County in the Spring of 2024 to understand how people use Decker Lake, and increase the accessible health benefits of the space.
About the Project.
The goal of this project was to understand the multiple ways that people use Decker Lake Park. By administering a survey at the park and in surrounding workplaces and community venues, the project sought to answer the following questions:
What aspects of human health (physical, mental, social) are most influenced by time spent at Decker Lake?
What aspects of the park are perceived to positively benefit visitor health?
Are there aspects of the park that users perceive as negatively impacting their health, or preventing them from fully accessing the beneficial aspects of the park?
How might projects at the park work to enhance existing areas of synergy between nature and human health while reducing perceived barriers to positive health outcomes?
Project Summary
The one-page summary of the project’s results can be found by clicking the link below. This document provides a snapshot of the project, the results from the survey, and key reccommendations for the stakeholders involved with Decker Lake.
Project Full Report
The full report is intended for stakeholders of Decker Lake to better understand the full methodology, results, and implications and recommendations of the project. If you have questions pertaining to the data on the one-page summary, please refer to the full report. For any other questions related to the project, please reach out to Myra Gerst at myra.gerst@utah.edu.
Project Outcomes.
Meet Maggie.
Maggie is a second-year graduate student in the Environmental Humanities program at the University of Utah, thrilled to be joining Nature and Human Health-Utah as the program’s first graduate fellow. She comes to Utah from Chicago, where her earliest connections to nature happened along shorelines and shady spaces in the city’s beaches and parks. Maggie has used her time in graduate school to pursue a deep interest in urban ecology and study how humans connect to plants, animals, and each other in places that have a high degree of human design or disturbance. She is interested in how urban parks and public lands can foster meaningful connections between humans and nonhumans, support species richness, and positively impact human health!
About Decker Lake.
Decker Lake Park is a 52-acre urban park on the east side of West Valley City. It has grassy areas and small hills, a walking path around a large pond with bushes, reeds, and trees, and lies along the Crosstowne trail, which connects Magna Copper Park to the Jordan River. Decker Lake is also visited by many migratory birds- 184 species have been recorded through community science on Ebird!
Stakeholders Involved.
There are two active improvement projects at Decker Lake (as of May 2024):
A project to increase physical activity and connection to nature by installing new interpretive signage about wildlife and wayfinding at Decker Lake. The grant team (a collaboration between Get Healthy Utah, Healthy West Valley, and other agency and nonprofit organizations) also works on trash cleanup events, alongside organizations like Keep Decker Lake Beautiful, a new nonprofit that seeks to work on regular cleanup events.
Salt Lake County health educators are interested in promoting healthy use of Decker Lake. Day-to-day management of Decker Lake and the administration of additional recreational and infrastructure improvements is managed by Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation.