Beyond the Backyard: GIS Analysis of Public Green Space Accessibility in Australian Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

During times of stress and social pressure, urban green space provides social, cultural, and economic resources that help individuals and communities cope. Green space accessibility is, therefore, an important indicator related to people’s health and welfare. However, green space accessibility is not even throughout urban areas, with some areas better served with green space than others. Green space patterning is, therefore, a major environmental justice challenge. This research uses GIS approaches to analyze and understand urban green space access of urban communities in the Australian metropolitan areas of Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. We calculate indicators to describe green space access in relation to different green space patterns within different metropolitan zones, including the inner urban, suburban, and peri urban. We use the best available open data from the Australian census of 2017 to calculate green space accessibility. Our results describe the relationship between population density and green space distribution and patterning in the four metropolitan areas. We find that even cities which are generally thought of as liveable have considerable environmental justice challenges and inequity and must improve green space access to address environmental inequity. We also find that a range type of measures can be used to better understand green space accessibility. Accessibility varies greatly both within metropolitan areas and also from city to city. Through improving our understanding of the green space accessibility characteristics of Australian metropolitan areas, the result of this study supports the future planning of more just and equal green cities.

Study on Spatial Distribution Equilibrium of Elderly Care Facilities in Downtown Shanghai

“…Access refers to the possibility of reaching a place, goods, services, etc., also known as access opportunity and convenience [25]. Accessibility assessment is one of the main methods of research on the rationality of the spatial distribution [26][27][28], which is widely used in the layout evaluation of public service facilities, such as education, medical treatment, elderly care facilities, parks, and green spaces [29,30]. Countries that also face serious aging problems, such as Japan [31,32], South Korea [33], Finland [34], and the United States [35,36], have also attracted extensive attention from scholars to study the accessibility of public service facilities.…”

Investigation of Urban Green Space (Ugs) Accessibility in Adelaide Metropolitan Area Using Network Analyst

“…"Adelaide takes a linear form, extending 90 km from north to south on the Adelaide Plains bounded by the Mount Lofty Ranges and the Gulf St Vincent" (Department of Infrastructure and Transportation, 2022). The population density in Adelaide was around 390 people per square kilometre in 2017 (Hsu et al, 2022), while its inner urban population density is 2148 people per km² (Hsu et al). In this study, the accessibility to UGS has been investigated using network analysis techniques in ArcGIS to address the aim of this research.…”

“…According to previous studies, different factors cause challenges to accessibility to UGS, including education (Chen et al, 2020), economic situation (Dennis et al, 2020), and race (Venter et al, 2020). Green spaces cover 10.81% of Greater Adelaide and provide 272.21 m² UGS per capita for all residents (Hsu et al, 2022).…”

“…Table 1. UGS access standards in the world (Hsu,et al,2022,P4 ) As the significance of UGS is recognised for the cities and citizens' health, emphasising UGS accessibility has increased in recent years by researchers and urban planners (Hsu et al, 2022). Previous studies adopted different approaches to measuring UGS accessibility (Dai, 2011;Ekkel & de Vries, 2017).…”

“…Previous studies adopted different approaches to measuring UGS accessibility (Dai, 2011;Ekkel & de Vries, 2017). As seen in table 1, Hsu et al collected the most considered approaches in the world in this regard (Hsu et al, 2022). However, there is no national approach to addressing the fair distribution of green spaces in Australia.…”