The Origins of an Environmental Emotion

Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term “solastalgia” in 2005, combining the Latin word “solacium” (comfort) with the Greek root “algia” (pain) to describe the distress caused by environmental change. Albrecht first observed this phenomenon while studying communities in New South Wales affected by large-scale open-cut coal mining. Residents expressed profound grief and disorientation as familiar landscapes disappeared, despite still physically residing in the same location. Unlike traditional homesickness or nostalgia, which involve longing for distant places, solastalgia represents the pain of witnessing one’s home environment deteriorate while still living within it.

The concept quickly gained traction beyond academic circles because it named an increasingly common experience. Indigenous communities who have maintained deep connections to their lands for generations articulated similar feelings when describing the emotional impact of environmental degradation. Psychological research has subsequently validated solastalgia as a genuine form of distress, distinct from but related to other conditions like anxiety and depression. In essence, solastalgia represents a form of “homesickness while still at home” – the grief that emerges when places that provided comfort and identity begin to transform irreversibly.

Manifestations Across Diverse Landscapes

Solastalgia manifests differently across various environmental contexts. In agricultural regions experiencing prolonged drought, farmers report profound grief watching once-fertile land turn barren. Their identity and livelihood, intimately connected to working productive soil, suffer as consistent crop failures transform not just economics but the very appearance and function of their home landscape. Similarly, coastal communities facing erosion and rising seas describe the peculiar anxiety of watching familiar shorelines disappear and neighborhood landmarks succumb to flooding.

Urban environments also generate forms of solastalgia. Longtime residents of rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods express distress as familiar cultural landmarks vanish, replaced by new developments catering to different populations. The physical transformation of these spaces represents not just aesthetic change but the erasure of community memory and identity. In post-disaster zones like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or Paradise, California after devastating wildfires, returning residents often struggle with profound solastalgia when confronting dramatically altered landscapes that no longer feel like home despite being geographically the same location.

Indigenous communities frequently experience particularly acute forms of solastalgia, as their cultural identity and spiritual practices are often directly tied to specific environmental features. When sacred sites become inaccessible or irreversibly changed through development, extraction, or climate impacts, the resulting distress transcends mere sentimental attachment, striking at core elements of cultural continuity and identity formation.

Psychological Impacts and Mental Health Considerations

Research increasingly documents the significant psychological toll of solastalgia. Studies in communities affected by mining, deforestation, and other rapid environmental changes show elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. The chronic stress of witnessing environmental degradation creates what researchers call “corrosive communities” – places where social bonds fray as shared environmental identity deteriorates. This psychological distress differs from general climate anxiety because it stems from tangible, observable changes in immediate surroundings rather than abstract concerns about global trends.

Mental health professionals have begun integrating awareness of solastalgia into therapeutic approaches. Ecopsychology and nature-based therapies now explicitly address grief related to environmental change. Clinicians report that simply naming and validating this form of distress provides relief to many patients who previously struggled to articulate why landscape changes affected them so deeply. Therapeutic approaches often include connecting individuals with conservation efforts, documenting environmental changes through art or narrative, and fostering community connections with others experiencing similar emotions.

The concept has proven particularly valuable in disaster mental health contexts. Following hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, recovery programs increasingly recognize that rebuilding physical infrastructure alone proves insufficient – communities must also address the profound sense of disorientation and loss that persists when familiar landscapes have fundamentally changed. This recognition has led to more holistic recovery efforts that honor environmental grief as a legitimate part of the trauma response.

Community Responses and Collective Adaptation

Communities facing environmental change have developed various strategies to address collective solastalgia. In flood-prone regions of the Netherlands, urban planners incorporate historical water features into new flood-resistant designs, maintaining visual continuity while adapting to changing conditions. This approach acknowledges the psychological importance of landscape continuity even amid necessary physical changes. Similarly, forest-dependent communities facing increased wildfire risk have developed ceremonial and artistic responses to landscape transformation, creating rituals that help process grief while fostering new relationships with changing environments.

Digital preservation efforts represent another emerging response. Projects documenting landscapes through virtual reality, oral histories, and photographic archives create repositories of environmental memory that survive physical changes. These efforts serve both current residents processing change and future generations seeking to understand previous incarnations of altered places. Indigenous communities have been particularly innovative in using digital tools to preserve cultural knowledge tied to changing landscapes, developing apps and interactive maps that document traditional ecological knowledge and sacred sites.

Participatory planning approaches have proven effective in mitigating solastalgia during necessary environmental transitions. When community members actively engage in designing adaptation measures, the resulting changes feel less imposed and disorienting. For instance, managed retreat programs relocating communities from flood-prone areas show better psychological outcomes when residents help determine the character and layout of new settlements, incorporating meaningful elements from previous locations while acknowledging the necessity of change.

Solastalgia in Climate Policy and Environmental Justice

Recognition of solastalgia has begun influencing environmental policy discussions. Several countries now include psychological impact assessments when evaluating major development projects, acknowledging that environmental changes affect not just physical health but mental wellbeing. Climate adaptation frameworks increasingly incorporate measures to preserve cultural landmarks and maintain visual continuity where possible, even as functional changes become necessary. This represents a significant shift from purely technical approaches to environmental management toward more holistic frameworks that consider emotional connections to place.

Environmental justice advocates have embraced the concept of solastalgia to articulate how marginalized communities disproportionately bear psychological burdens of environmental change. When industrial facilities, waste sites, or extraction projects transform disadvantaged neighborhoods, residents experience not just physical health impacts but profound solastalgia as familiar surroundings become unrecognizable or threatening. Naming this experience has strengthened arguments for more equitable distribution of environmental burdens and benefits.

Looking forward, researchers suggest that addressing solastalgia requires fundamentally rethinking how societies manage environmental change. Rather than viewing landscape transformation as merely technical or economic challenges, effective approaches must account for place attachment and identity. This perspective suggests that successful climate adaptation depends not just on building physical resilience but on maintaining psychological connections between people and changing environments. By acknowledging and addressing solastalgia, communities may develop more sustainable relationships with environments that inevitably continue to transform in response to both human activity and natural processes.