The contribution of geolocated data to the diagnosis of urban green infrastructure. Tenerife insularity as a benchmark

Abstract

Urban Green Infrastructure —UGI— development has become essential for fostering sustainable and liveable cities, enhancing human wellbeing and quality of life. Integrating UGI into urban planning, however, remains a challenge: a nuanced understanding of local contexts and user preferences is crucial to ensure its successful implementation. This study presents a pioneering approach in which geolocated social media data —sourced from platforms like Wikiloc, Strava, and Foursquare— were leveraged to identify urban dynamics derived from user preferences in relation to UGI. Adopting Santa Cruz de Tenerife —Spain— as a case study, geolocated social media data was used to integrate user preferences into the definition and diagnosis of the UGI, emphasizing the significance of aligning infrastructure development with community needs and desires. As a result, social media data provided rich insights into the popularity and connectivity of natural spaces, attractor hubs, and key urban corridors, enabling to achieve a complex reading of the urban activity dynamics taking place in open spaces. Additionally, the user-generated data revealed frequently used routes connecting urban and natural environments as well as dynamic mobility trends across the urban landscape. Thus, integrating user-generated digital footprints into UGI planning can significantly enhance urban resilience, biodiversity, and community well-being by levelling urban decisions with local users’ behaviours and preferences.