Green Space Design

Greenery areas represent an organic component of the rural space. For urban needs we base on the survey of their condition. Within the revitalisation of public green spaces in central parts of these communities we work on their qualitative conversion to an attractive public space using principles of contemporary trends in rural space design. The main attributes of the proposals are: return to the traditions, application of domestic tree species and stands, use of natural materials as well as characteristic rural compositional principles. Our activities herewith provide for rural municipalities´ governments some concrete proposals to improve the quality of local peoples´ lives by tools of landscape architecture.

The study of urban green space has become an important topic of research in the last decade. In this study the green area coverage of 11 administrative units of Tirana is evaluated based on the 2015 orthophoto. The total green area and the distribution for administrative units as well as relationships between the amount of green space, suicide, and noise and air pollution over different buffer distances from the monitoring points are evaluated. Over 27% of the area of the city of Tirana is covered by greenery but the distribution is heterogeneous among administrative units. The noise tended to decrease with increasing amount of greenery; however, the trends were not significant. On the other hand, the amount of air pollution decreased significantly with increasing amount of greenery and the strength of the relationship increased with increasing distance from the monitoring points. The relationship between greenery and suicidal rate overall was not significant, except for the most urbanized administrative units; however this based on a limited sample size. The data from this analysis shows trends between the amount of greenery and various health and environmental indicators that could be useful for better planning and management of green spaces in the future, however, more data is needed.

La commune de Bohicon est une commune en plein processus de développement et ceci est accompagné d’une démographie galopante. Doté de nombreux atouts naturels elle est malheureusement aujourd’hui confrontée à de nombreux problèmes qui entravent son développement. Ces problèmes sont en majorité d’ordre environnemental et urbanistique
notamment à cause de l’augmentation de la population et du développement des activités industrielles, qui sont plus présentes dans les arrondissements urbains. Le quartier kpokon situé en plein cœur du 2ème arrondissement connait ces problèmes et c’est ainsi que le SDAC (Schéma Directeur d’Aménagement Communal) préconise l’aménagement et l’implantation des espaces verts en vue de palier à ces problèmes. Au regard de nombreux avantages qu’offrent les espaces
verts dans les quartiers qui composent la ville, un diagnostic approfondi de la situation a été réalisé dans le quartier. Il a montré qu’autant pour la voirie que pour les jardins, les espaces verts sont largement déficitaires. Malgré l’existence de site pouvant abriter ces équipements. A la sortie de ce diagnostic, un plan d’aménagement en espaces verts a été élaboré, de manière à contribuer au développement du cadre de vie dans la commune. Ces actions ont fait l’objet d’étude d’impact environnemental, social, économique et urbanistique afin de limiter au mieux les impacts négatifs qu’ils pourraient comporter et amplifier, au besoin, leurs impacts positifs.

Green infrastructure planning has grown in prominence since it was first discussed in the late 1990's. Since the President's Council on Sustainable Development discussed the concept researchers and academics from across the globe, though predominantly the UK, Western Europe and North America, have championed the process. Acknowledging its ability to deliver a number of diverse benefits in different urban and urban-fringe landscapes, green infrastructure has been discussed as enabling planners to develop multi-functional, innovative and sustainable places.

Green infrastructure planning has grown in prominence since it was first discussed in the late 1990's. Since the President's Council on Sustainable Development discussed the concept researchers and academics from across the globe, though predominantly the UK, Western Europe and North America, have championed the process. Acknowledging its ability to deliver a number of diverse benefits in different urban and urban-fringe landscapes, green infrastructure has been discussed as enabling planners to develop multi-functional, innovative and sustainable places.

The commune of Bohicon is a commune in the process of development and this is accompanied
by a galloping demography. Endowed with many natural assets, it is unfortunately today faced
with many problems which hamper its development. These problems are mostly environmental
and town planning, particularly because of the increase in population and the development of
industrial activities, which are more present in the urban districts. The kpokon district located in
the heart of the 2nd arrondissement is experiencing these problems and this is how the SDAC
(Communal Development Master Plan) recommends the development and establishment of
green spaces in order to alleviate these problems. In view of the many advantages that green
spaces offer in the neighborhoods that make up the city, an in-depth diagnosis of the situation
was carried out in the neighborhood. He showed that both for roads and gardens, green spaces
are largely in deficit. Despite the existence of a site that can house this equipment. At the end of
this diagnosis, a green space development plan was drawn up, so as to contribute to the
development of the living environment in the municipality. These actions have been the subject
of an environmental, social, economic and town planning impact study in order to limit as much
as possible the negative impacts they could have and amplify their positive impacts, if necessary

[Published in 2014]
Urban Heat Island (UHI) is considered as one of the major problems in the 21st century as a consequence of urbanisation and industrialisation of human civilisation. The main source of UHI is the large amount of heat produced from urban structures, as they absorb and re-radiate solar radiations. Therefore, Urban Heat Islands develop in areas with a high percentage of non-reflective, water-resistant surfaces and a low percentage of vegetation. Specifically, a lack of vegetation reduces heat lost due to evapotranspiration. Vegetation, particularly in the presence of high moisture levels, plays a vital role in the regulation of surface temperatures, even more than may non- reflective or low-albedo surfaces. There are different ways of reducing the effects of UHI. However, a common measure to mitigate Urban Heat Island is to increase urban green spaces such as parks, street trees and green roofs. This paper discusses the current literature and knowledge about the impacts of green spaces on mitigating UHI. Studies conducted on the influence of greenery on mitigating UHI have indicated that all green spaces help urban areas adapt to the impact of UHI regardless of whether they are parks, street trees or green roofs.

Non-urbanized areas (NUAs) are outdoor places with significant amounts of vegetation. They are mainly semi-natural patches that represent the last remnants of nature in metropolitan areas. As part of the agricultural and green infrastructure that provide ecosystem services, such as purification of air and water, mitigation of floods and droughts, re-generation of soil fertility, moderation of temperature extremes and enhancing of landscape quality. Like all natural ecosystems, NUAs today are endangered by urban sprawl, which is the main cause of their fragmentation and loss of evapotranspiring features. For these reasons, the protection of these areas is a fundamental issue for land use planning, and it requires appropriate strategies for their management.
We propose a Land Use Suitability Matrix, based on five different analytical phases, to orient the use of NUAs. Land Use and Land Cover Analysis quantifies the percentage of evapotranspiring surface for each land use. Fragmentation Analysis assesses the dimensions and density of NUAs. Proximity Analysis takes into account the degree to which NUAs are close to residential areas. The results from these analyses are integrated in a suitability matrix, which returns new Prospective Land Uses for NUAs. The last phase verifies the correspondence of these new land uses with the current ones to confirm or modify the proposed land uses. The resulting scenario allows the user to enhance the production of ecosystem services and define new appropriate land uses for NUAs within the agricultural and green infrastructure.
The case of three municipalities within the Catania metropolitan area (Italy), characterized by a considerable urban sprawl, is presented.

Ecosystem services are vital for humans in urban regions. However, urban development poses a great risk for the ability of ecosystems to provide these services. In this paper we first address the most important ecosystem services in functional urban regions in Finland. Well accessible and good quality recreational ecosystem services, for example, provided by urban nature, are an important part of a high-quality living environment and important for public health. Vegetation of urban regions can have a role in carbon dioxide sequestration and thus in climate change mitigation. For instance, estimates of carbon sinks can be compared to total CO2 emissions of an urban region, and the municipality can aim at both increasing carbon sinks and decreasing CO2 emissions with proper land-use planning. Large and contiguous core nature areas, smaller green areas and ecological connections between them are the essence of regional ecological networks and are essential for maintaining interconnected habitats for species and thus biological diversity. Thus, both local and regional level ecological networks are vital for maintaining ecosystem services in urban regions. The impacts of climate change coupled with land-use and land cover change will bring serious challenges for maintaining ecosystem services in urban areas. Although not yet widely used in planning practices, the ecosystem services approach can provide an opportunity for land-use planning to develop ecologically sustainable urban regions. Currently, information on ecosystem services of urban regions is lacking and there is a need to improve the knowledge base for land-use planning.

Research on the association between urban green space and mental health has largely focused on the presence or quantity of green space, rather than on the spatial distribution of green spaces within the urban landscape. We therefore investigated the relationship between the amount, composition, and spatial distribution of urban green space and the level of psychological distress reported by residents of a large metropolitan city (Chicago, Illinois, USA). We used mental health data collected from 6405 residents in 61 communities by the Chicago Department of Public Health as part of their Healthy Chicago Survey, and quantified landscape metrics related to the amount and configuration of green space within these community ‘landscapes’. Using generalized linear mixed models that controlled for socio-economic confounds, we found that residents reported less psychological distress within urban landscapes that had small-sized water bodies and greater distances between forested areas, which tend to characterize the distribution of large forest parks throughout Chicago. In terms of total green space, however, psychological distress levels were lower in landscapes having a disaggregated distribution of urban green spaces (i.e., many small green spaces) relative to a single (or a few) large green spaces. Our study thus highlights that the configuration of urban green space may be as important as the amount of green space to the mental health of urban residents.

En este trabajo, nos proponemos un acercamiento a lo que llamamos la producción cultural de la ribera en Rosario, a partir del cruce entre una serie de corporalidades, prácticas y usos en una espacialidad concreta: el Parque de las Colectividades. En ese sentido, intentamos trazar un mapa de los usos y los habitares del frente ribereño, atendiendo una multiplicidad de cuerpos y prácticas. Pensamos a las prácticas de los cuerpos como un vector posible para la producción de un espacio (Lefebvre, 1974): una Rosario que, desde hace unos veinticinco años, vincula ciertos repertorios culturales al paisaje ribereño.

Non-urbanized areas (NUAs) are outdoor places with significant amounts of vegetation. They are mainly semi-natural patches that represent the last remnants of nature in metropolitan areas. As part of the agricultural and green infrastructure they provide ecosystem services, such as purification of air and water, mitigation of floods and droughts, re-generation of soil fertility, moderation of temperature extremes and enhancing of landscape quality. Like all natural ecosystems, NUAs today are endangered by urban sprawl, which is the main cause of their fragmentation and loss of evapotranspiration features. For these reasons, the protection of these areas is a fundamental issue for land-use planning, and it requires appropriate strategies for their management. We propose a land-use suitability strategy, based on five different analytical phases, to address the land-use of NUAs: (1) land-use and land cover analysis quantifies the percentage of evapotranspiring surface for each land-use...

Australian cities have undergone profound reforms over recent decades, as politicians, decisionmakers and planners have sought to ensure our built environments remain liveable and can adapt to new lifestyles and demographic trends. Urban consolidation is one of these reforms. 1 Urban consolidation is a growth management policy that aims to direct growth away from green-field sites at the metropolitan periphery by increasing density in existing built environments, through smaller suburban lots and higher density dwellings– ...

The health benefits associated with spending time in natural environments have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns and restrictions to safeguard public health have exacerbated the pre-existing mental health crisis and rise of non-communicable diseases. Thus, the importance of nature as a health resource has been elevated, hastening calls for a better understanding of how health benefits might differ across user groups and nature provisions. In this regard, urban green spaces have become the greatest research focus; however, blue spaces, especially inland freshwater (e.g., wetlands), remain less studied. First-hand user experiences are also under-represented. This exploratory study examines the motivations and benefits of active wetland centre users in the UK, both during and after visits. Responses to three open-ended questions were collated online from 385 participants, and a qualitative content analysis was conducted based on an existing taxonomy from users of urban green spaces. The results showed strong motivations to visit due to the biodiversity at the site (mainly the birdlife), while less tangible nature (e.g., fresh air) and amenities were also important. In contrast to other studies on natural environments, physical activity was a less influential motivation. Salient derived effects included positive and intensely positive emotions, relaxation and mental restoration. After visits to wetland centres, feelings of vitality and satisfaction were the most prominent effects that emerged. For decision-makers looking to leverage inland blue spaces for public health benefit, our results highlight the broad range and relative prominence of the reasons for use and the associated perceived health benefits derived by users of UK wetland centres. They highlight how biodiversity, abiotic nature and good amenities are important qualities to consider when planning, managing and encouraging people to use natural environments for health benefit, qualities that may also provide important environmental co-benefits.

This paper has summarized and synthesized the state-of-the-art understanding of the potential contributions of green infrastructure (GI) to climate change (CC) adaptation by asking the following questions: How does GI help us adapt to CC? What GI functions and services are useful for adapting to the impacts of CC? What issues need to be resolved for planning GI for CC adaptation? GI with multitude of benefits serves as a basis for developing resilient and sustainable landscapes. CC adaptation (CCA) is defined as options and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against actual or expected CC effects. GI can help mitigate and/or take advantage of various observed and projected CC impacts in Japan. For example, GI can provide better stormwater management by improving rainwater infiltration and reducing run-off. GI can provide functional corridors for plant and animal migration. GI can be a useful countermeasure to the urban heat island effect, expected to be exacerbated by CC. GI can also provide CO2 sinks and buffer zones against sea level rise. Barriers for GI implementation for CCA include a lack of watershed-based planning, high uncertainty of the climate projection and CC impacts at a municipal/site scale where land-use planning decisions are made, and a lack of coordination between land-use plans for different sectors at the prefectural and city/town scale. Possible solutions to overcoming these obstacles include applying the concepts such as “learn by doing” and “safe-to-fail,” taking into account co-benefits, and utilizing several holistic planning frameworks. In Japan GI planning is arguably most suitable at the regional (prefectural and multi-prefectural) scale, using greenspace master plans developed by local and regional governments.

ABSTRACT Overview Transport is one of the main contributors of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (around a quarter of the total in Europe) and, therefore, of climate change (CC). To reduce the consequences of CC, it is possible to act by adapting our cities to its effects or by mitigating its causes. Not always adaptation strategies are suitable to mitigation and viceversa. The key is to find actions that can help to reduce the GHG emissions and to increase the resilience of our cities, i.e. a way to act locally and think globally. To this respect, a successful way to adapt and mitigate is to promote the systematic use of green walking paths. On the one hand the role of green spaces to increase the adaptive capacity of our urban areas to the global warming is widely recognized; on the other hand the analysis of the factors which affect pedestrian behaviour is a relevant issue to mitigate the impact of climate change, through sustainable mobility. The aim of this work is to develop a tool that can help the planning and designing of green walking networks. To reach this goal, it is useful to understand to which extent green spaces, vegetation and trees affect walking attitude under different climate and weather conditions. An integrated approach is used, thus combining transport and land-use planning concepts with notions of outdoor thermal comfort and network accessibility. Methods The methodology proposed is based on the analysis of walking networks through a revised Multiple Centrality Assessment (Porta et al., 2008). The concepts of node accessibility, equivalent walking distance (Wibowo and Olszewski, 2005) and thermal comfort are integrated using a general cost function of links and weighted nodes. It was applied to test the walking network inside the Campus of the University of Catania (Italy), which includes different functions and where pedestrian paths are poorly experienced by people. This is mainly due to the fact that they are mixed with car routes and they do not adequately protect from high temperatures and wind. The promotion of pedestrian mobility and, in general, of the sustainable mobility of the Campus users is one of the main aim of the University Mobility Management office (MOMACT). Results The results of the case study are in terms of coloured maps, local centrality indexes referred to the activities and global indexes referred to the network as a whole. They mostly show the influence of climate, i.e. high temperatures and wind-chill, together with geometric features, such as slopes, and the paving surface, on the cost function, thus reflecting the walking attitude. Different scenarios were analyzed and, in particular, greening the paths and opening internal corridors to connect the activities seem to benefit the walking network, increasing the global efficiency. Conclusions The methodology proposed can be used as a tool to analyse the impact of weather conditions and the influence of vegetation on pedestrian mobility, thus helping the design of both green spaces and walking networks, with the overall aim to improve the climate change adaptation and mitigation in urban areas. References Porta S., Crucitti P. and Latora V. (2008). Multiple Centrality Assessment in Parma – A network analysis of paths and open spaces. Urban Design International 13, 41-50. doi:10.1057/udi.2008.1 Wibowo S. S. and Olszewski P. (2005). Modeling Walking Accessibility to Public Transport Terminals: Case Study of Singapore Mass Rapid Transit. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol. 6, pp. 147-156

Satellite data are currently considered as one of the most important sources in producing usemap and land coverage. Several digital classification methods have been proposed for such maps which are now being used. Accordingly, evaluating and comparing different methods for determining the appropriate and principled method is of utmost importance in different situations in the country. High-resolution images available for sensors, such as Ikonos and QuickBird are more efficient than digital operating systems that provide opportunities for details of large-scale land cover maps. In this article panchromatic band of QuickBird images is used in Northeast of Isfahan in 2006. Image texture is used for processing panchromatic band. To extract the texture of six soil cover (explained in this research), the author used the filters in the software Envi. 4. 8. About 80% resolution for greenspace cover implies the acceptability of this method.

Ecosystem services are vital for humans in urban regions. However, urban development poses a great risk for the ability of ecosystems to provide these services. In this paper we first address the most important ecosystem services in functional urban regions in Finland. Well accessible and good quality recreational ecosystem services, for example, provided by urban nature, are an important part of a high-quality living environment and important for public health. Vegetation of urban regions can have a role in carbon dioxide sequestration and thus in climate change mitigation. For instance, estimates of carbon sinks can be compared to total CO2 emissions of an urban region, and the municipality can aim at both increasing carbon sinks and decreasing CO2 emissions with proper land-use planning. Large and contiguous core nature areas, smaller green areas and ecological connections between them are the essence of regional ecological networks and are essential for maintaining interconnected habitats for species and thus biological diversity. Thus, both local and regional level ecological networks are vital for maintaining ecosystem services in urban regions. The impacts of climate change coupled with land-use and land cover change will bring serious challenges for maintaining ecosystem services in urban areas. Although not yet widely used in planning practices, the ecosystem services approach can provide an opportunity for land-use planning to develop ecologically sustainable urban regions. Currently, information on ecosystem services of urban regions is lacking and there is a need to improve the knowledge base for land-use planning.