Does green space matter? Exploring relationships between green space type and health indicators

Akpınar, Abdullah; Barbosa‐Leiker, Celestina; Brooks, Kerry R.

doi:10.1016/j.ufug.2016.10.013

Cited by 167 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Furthermore, urban green areas have various effects on humans [2], partially as ecosystem services [3]. It is proven that access to green spaces is directly related to well-being through the influence of these areas on physical and mental health [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. This influence is discernible mostly on changes in air quality [6,7,12,13], land surface temperature [6,14], physical activity [6,8,10,12], social cohesion [7,12], community identity [15,16], and stress reduction [7,8,12,17].…”

Section: The Importance Of Urban Green Areas and Ways To Analyze Theimentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Spatial Proximity—Classifying Parks and Their Visitors in London Based on Spatiotemporal and Sentiment Analysis of Twitter Data

Kovács-Györi

Ristea

Kolcsár

et al. 2018

IJGI

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Parks are essential public places and play a central role in urban livability. However, traditional methods of investigating their attractiveness, such as questionnaires and in situ observations, are usually time- and resource-consuming, while providing less transferable and only site-specific results. This paper presents an improved methodology of using social media (Twitter) data to extract spatial and temporal patterns of park visits for urban planning purposes, along with the sentiment of the tweets, focusing on frequent Twitter users. We analyzed the spatiotemporal park visiting behavior of more than 4000 users for almost 1700 parks, examining 78,000 tweets in London, UK. The novelty of the research is in the combination of spatial and temporal aspects of Twitter data analysis, applying sentiment and emotion extraction for park visits throughout the whole city. This transferable methodology thereby overcomes many of the limitations of traditional research methods. This study concluded that people tweeted mostly in parks 3–4 km away from their center of activity and they were more positive than elsewhere while doing so. In our analysis, we identified four types of parks based on their visitors’ spatial behavioral characteristics, the sentiment of the tweets, and the temporal distribution of the users, serving as input for further urban planning-related investigations.

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Section: The Importance Of Urban Green Areas and Ways To Analyze Theimentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Spatial Proximity—Classifying Parks and Their Visitors in London Based on Spatiotemporal and Sentiment Analysis of Twitter Data

Kovács-Györi

Ristea

Kolcsár

et al. 2018

IJGI

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“…Studies have also been found to suggest that barriers to park use, such as lack of access, safety concerns, and poor maintenance of facilities, were associated with increased insufficient physical activity [7,8]. On the other hand, the size of the park, availability of park facilities and amenities, organized activities, accessibility, and aesthetics are considered important factors in improving physical activity [10]. Parks have various facilities and features that can encourage people to engage in physical activity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, sports fields and courts, exercise stations, and jogging and cycling tracks are usually designed for physical activity. It was also suggested that the availability of these facilities is a strong predictor of increasing physical activity levels in the park [9,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association Between Park Characteristics and Park-Based Physical Activity Using Systematic Observation: Insights from Bangkok, Thailand

Arifwidodo

Chandrasiri

2020

Sustainability

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Parks hold an essential role in promoting physical activity in urban areas. Studies have found that park characteristics such as park size, facilities, accessibility, and aesthetics are reported to have a positive association with increasing physical activity of the urban populations. However, the evidence in the context of Southeast Asian cities is still lacking, as most studies are from North America and Europe. The study explores the associations between park characteristics and park-based physical activity in Bangkok, Thailand. Ten major public parks were examined using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC). Descriptive analysis was used to understand the characteristics of park users and park-based physical activity. A bivariate logistic regression model was employed to determine the variables of park characteristics and of having moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). We found that parks with bigger sizes and better access to public transport were associated with a higher likelihood of users having MVPA in the park. We also found that adding more facilities in the park, even if they are specifically aimed for physical activity, would not increase the likelihood of having MVPA. The findings from the study suggested that investing in better accessibility and physical quality of existing parks as well as improving equal opportunities for park use will be a more sensible option for promoting park-based physical activity in Bangkok, Thailand.

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“…Urban parks which can provide important ecosystem services to ameliorate the impacts of urbanization, such as noise reduction, recreational facilities, microclimate regulation, and air pollution reduction, have been shown to significantly mitigate the UHI effect during the hot season [10][11][12][13][14][15]. The …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cooling Effect of Urban Parks and Its Monthly Variations in a Snow Climate City

Yang

et al. 2017

Remote Sensing

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Urban parks have been shown to form park cool islands (PCIs), which can effectively alleviate the negative influences of urban heat islands (UHI). However, few studies have examined the detailed characteristics of PCIs, the effect of urban park features on their individual temperatures, and monthly variation in PCIs. Land surface temperature (LST) retrieved from Landsat 8 TIR images between May and October were used to represent the thermal environment. Urban park characteristics were extracted from high-resolution GF-2 images. Using these datasets, the relationships between urban park characteristics and PCIs were explored in this study using Changchun, which has a snow climate, as a case study. The results showed the following: (1) the urban parks exhibited a cooling island effect, and the PCIs showed significant monthly variations with the highest intensities in the hot months; (2) the effects of composition (e.g., park size and the percentage of water area) on LSTs and PCIs showed significant monthly variability and were stronger than the configuration effects. Furthermore, an unexpected, negative correlation between PCIs and the area of park grass was also found; and (3) larger parks tended to have stronger PCI intensities and extents of influence. For parks larger than 30 ha, the cooling effects extended approximately 480 m from the park edge between June and August. For all of parks during the study duration, the rate of temperature increase was highest within 60 m from the park edge. The PCI we employ specifically in this study is characterized by LST.

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Does green space matter? Exploring relationships between green space type and health indicators

Cited by 167 publications

References 65 publications

Beyond Spatial Proximity—Classifying Parks and Their Visitors in London Based on Spatiotemporal and Sentiment Analysis of Twitter Data

Beyond Spatial Proximity—Classifying Parks and Their Visitors in London Based on Spatiotemporal and Sentiment Analysis of Twitter Data

Association Between Park Characteristics and Park-Based Physical Activity Using Systematic Observation: Insights from Bangkok, Thailand

The Cooling Effect of Urban Parks and Its Monthly Variations in a Snow Climate City

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