Urban Forestry & Urban Greening最新文献

Urban development has led to an overlap between natural and artificial environments, affecting individuals’ experiences with nature. To create high-quality urban natural environments, it is crucial to understand the residents’ perceptions, preferences and psychophysical health benefits concerning biodiversity. This study, employing various experimental designs, investigated the perceptions, preferences and restorative experiences of 695 participants concerning different levels of plant species richness and colour diversity in four typical urban green space types (lawn, forest, square and streetscape). The following discoveries were made: (i) The colour diversity carried by vegetation in lawns was an important basis for the public to identify plant diversity. Lawns with high richness achieved by different grass species (that have green colour) were not preferred by the public, and increased colour diversity that can be achieved by adding flowering plants (forbs) was preferred by people more than a single green lawn. The species richness of forests was positively correlated with public perception, preference and perceived restoration, with single green forests being preferred by the public. Additionally, people preferred vegetated environments over unvegetated squares or streetscapes. (ii) Participants’ perceptions, preferences and perceived restoration were positively correlated. Their preference for and perceived restoration from plant diversity depended more on their perception of it than on the actual species richness. (iii) Participants’ gender, expertise, physical condition, ecological knowledge, childhood living environment, frequency of use and accessibility of green spaces, natural orientation (connectedness), gardening, sense of security and well-being all influenced their perceptions, preferences and perceived restoration from plant diversity to varying extents. Significant distinctions were found between different forms of experimental design. Combining between-subject and within-subject designs could both control individual errors to some extent and avoid long-term effects on the participants compared to using either design alone. These findings provide a theoretical basis and practical approach for future biodiversity-oriented urban green space planning and management to better maximise the ecological and social service benefits of urban green spaces.

The One Health framework was proposed by the World Health Organisation to explore human, animal, and environmental health interfaces using a holistic and interdisciplinary approach. Yet, the application of this framework to study urban green spaces has been poorly explored in the literature. As the amount of evidence on urban green spaces for citizens’ health and well-being is increasing, the use of a One Health framework may contribute to understanding urban green spaces from a comprehensive, interrelated and multidisciplinary perspective that comprises people, biodiversity and the urban environment. To explore this gap in the literature, this study presents a scoping review, which analysed 50 studies through an adapted version of the One Health framework, using the interfaces between human mental health, urban green spaces and urban biodiversity as analytical lenses. The review yielded three main findings: the restorative capacity of urban green spaces as a critical aspect of overall human health, the values of restorative capacity from having contact with urban biodiversity, and how ecological knowledge promotes biodiversity conservation in cities. This paper also discusses opportunities to continue expanding One Health by engaging with interdisciplinary discussions and cross-sectoral collaborations. We conclude with an invitation to explore and extend the One Health framework with respect to augmenting urban green spaces as restorative settings and valuing their capacity to contribute to public awareness of biodiversity and, in turn, contribute to improving human and environmental health in cities.

Trees across the urban-rural continuum are recognized for their ecological importance and ecosystem services. Municipalities often utilize spatial canopy cover data for monitoring this resource. Monitoring frameworks typically rely on fine-scale maps derived from very high spatial resolution sensors, which are high quality but expensive and unwieldy for consistent wide-area monitoring. In this paper, we explore how free Landsat imagery, supported by very high-resolution imagery interpretation and/or digital hemispherical photographs, can be used to effectively map canopy cover at a scale appropriate for municipal monitoring. We compare linear models and random forest machine learning for predicting canopy cover across a landscape (general) and within specific land covers (specialized). We create 2018 canopy cover maps and track progress towards forestry objectives in a region of southern Ontario, Canada. Random forest models using all reference data perform best for general use (R²: 0.90, RMSE: 10.1 %), separating non-canopy vegetation (e.g., agricultural fields) from tree canopy. Specialized models are useful in forest land cover patches, where hemispherical photographs relate with Landsat at a moderate strength (R²: 0.67, RMSE: 2.73 %), and in residential areas, capturing the totality of canopy cover variation (R²: 0.85, RMSE: 5.66 %). Accuracy was assessed with standard cross-validation, which is useful given limited resources. However, following best practice, an independent reference sample was also leveraged to assess the best general model (R²: 0.86, RMSE: 11.4 %), indicating that cross-validation was slightly overoptimistic. Results show that Caledon, a rural-dominant municipality within the study area, is the greenest (34 % canopy cover). The two cities (Brampton and Mississauga) have 15.9 % and 17.5 % canopy cover. Residential canopy criteria indicate “Good” performance in Caledon, “Moderate” in Mississauga, and “Low” in Brampton based on our 2018 assessment. The methods described here can provide municipalities with a low-cost approach for tree canopy monitoring across complex landscapes.

Data availability

The data used for this paper are available at: https://zenodo.org/records/12549244. The code created for this paper are available at: https://github.com/ZZMitch/PredictTreeCC_Landsat_1972to2020.

Global warming affects both summer and winter temperatures, altering the ecological and social dynamics of urban green spaces not only during the summer months but also during the winter. Strategies to mitigate climate change impacts often emphasize increasing urban vegetation cover, but the effectiveness of these green spaces in regulating the local microclimate depends on various factors, including the vegetation structure. These effects remain largely underexplored during the winter season. To investigate the thermal regulation capacity of urban green spaces we measured air temperature and humidity in 36 parks with different sizes and vegetation structures in Munich, Germany, in their non-green surroundings, as well as in a nearby forest during the 2022–23 winter. We then analyzed the relationship between the local microclimatic differences and the vegetation structure derived from mobile laser scans. In comparison with the nearby forest, we measured a winter urban heat island effect of 1.8 °C in Munich. The urban microclimates in winter were mainly influenced by the urban landscape of Munich, namely the distance to the city center with increasing air temperature closer to the center. Urban green spaces in Munich provided small but consistent local cooling and humidifying effects throughout the winter. These cooling effects largely depended on the green space size but partially also on the vegetation structure. We found a significant relationship between the microclimatic difference, the vegetation density, and the vertical homogeneity of vegetation. The canopy cover, however, could not significantly predict the cooling effect in winter. We conclude that increasing the structural complexity of urban green spaces through management decisions could improve their cooling effect and ecological value, even during winter months. To maximize the ecological and climatic benefits of urban green spaces, a nuanced understanding and management of urban microclimates is needed across all seasons.

Urban densification is widely regarded as a key strategy for curbing urban sprawl and optimizing resource efficiency. However, it still threatens urban greenspaces by altering the original land use. The imperative to preserve and restore urban greenspaces has gained increased attention, aligning with the global spotlight on urban resilience. This prompts the crucial question: How will urban densification impact urban greening? Focusing on the old city areas of 159 cities with over one million population in China, we depicted the dynamics of urban greenness using remote sensing data and explored greening trends under urban densification on both horizontal and vertical scales by generalized additive model (GAM). The findings are as follows: (1) As urban horizontal density increased from 68.4 % to 93.1 %, a significant U-shaped trend in urban greenness emerged within the old city areas over the past three decades. Notably, 80 % of these cities experienced turning points before 2010. (2) Almost half of the cities have recovered the urban greenness to 30 years ago, with a growth of 6.58 % on average. While urban densification led to a loss of greenness (-0.0197±0.0182), urban greenspaces countered this with a gain of 0.0049±0.0075, and the original built-up area contributed a gain of 0.0027±0.0284. (3) We decomposed urban densification into horizontal and vertical growth. The horizontal growth coincides with the greenness loss initially, but the rebound occurs when the horizontal density approaches 83 %. Vertical growth, on the other hand, is negatively correlated with urban greenness. Our study depicts the turning point of urban greening in old city areas unveiling the ecological effect of urban densification, which provides a reference for the sustainable development of future urbanization.

Given the significant time and financial investment required to improve parks, evaluations of the effectiveness of park improvements are crucial to inform future investment and design to benefit people of all ages. This natural experiment study examined the impact of park improvements on park visitation and park-based physical activity (PA) in two suburban parks (Park A and Park B) compared to a control park with no improvements. Park A underwent substantial improvements with wide range of facilities, including an all-abilities large adventure-style playground, outdoor fitness area designed for older adults, walking paths and other amenities. Park B received relatively minor improvements that included a playground for young children, outdoor fitness equipment for older adults, and a picnic area. Direct observations were conducted using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities at three timepoints; before (T1–2020) and after (T2–2021, and T3–2022) the improvements. At Park A, there was a significant increase in the total number of park visitors at both timepoints, and those engaged in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) from T1 to T3, relative to the control park. There were also significant increases in active park visits among children, adults, and older adults. At Park B, there were no significant changes in the total number of park visitors or those engaged in MVPA at either timepoint relative to the control park. These findings suggest the extent of improvements and the diversity of facilities included can influence the success of the intervention. The study highlights that including challenging and diverse play equipment suitable for various age groups and abilities, as well as other recreational features such as walking paths and outdoor fitness equipment can increase park visitation and physical activity across different age groups. The findings can inform future park management and planning decisions.

Vertical greening system (VGS) can cool adjacent urban space and lower building conditioning energy use without consuming valuable land area, however the influence of local microclimate on the effects is understudied. To better understand how VGS behaves environmentally in localized urban climates, the study investigated the outdoor cooling and building energy-saving potential of a VGS in five local climate zones (LCZ) in Shanghai, using integrated modeling with ENVI-met and EnergyPlus. The model verification reasonably reflects the relative differences in thermal effects of VGS due to local climates. The result reveals that, under the maximum inter-LCZ differences in air temperature (Ta) and relative humidity (RH) of 1.4 °C and 5.3 %, the greatest inter-LCZ variations in cooling and humidifying effects of the VGS are 0.16 °C and 1.1 %, respectively. The VGS creates greater adjacent Ta reduction in higher-ranked LCZs, by up to 0.27 °C, but increases RH by 1.6 %. In summer, the VGS provides energy savings of 132–278 Wh/m² with energy saving rates of 5.7–11.7 %. The annual energy savings are partially offset by the increase in winter heating, and the annual energy saving rates are reduced to 3.2–6.3 %. Of the savings, 92 % is due to shading, 8 % to cooling, and the humidifying effect has a negative impact (- 11 %). The findings underscore the impact of localized urban climates on the VGS thermal and energy performances, and support climate-responsive and performance-optimized urban VGS planning and application.

The urban park accessibility is a vital measure of urban livability, indicating either the presence or absence of environmental equity. This study introduces a novel approach by integrating real-time navigation data with traditional accessibility assessments to examine the spatial distribution of parks in Ningbo, China. It evaluates service provision across different transportation modes and park tiers, revealing significant spatial disparities in accessibility. Particularly, it highlights a pronounced polarization, with some city core areas experiencing limited access. Additionally, this research establishes a clear correlation between housing prices and park accessibility, illustrating how urban greenery can influence real estate values. The findings underscore the need for policy interventions to promote equitable access to urban parks and to address potential green gentrification risks. The methodology proposed here offers valuable insights for urban planners and policymakers in scientifically assessing public resource accessibility and planning more equitable urban environments.

With the branding of a city as green increasingly serving to amplify attractiveness andinvestment while also contributing to patterns of green gentrification, the incentive to link real estate development and green space is growing. Yet, little is known about the extent to which this incentive has generated a spatial relationship between green space and newly constructed housing at the city-wide level and in ways that can be compared between cities. This gap in knowledge makes it difficult to precisely indicate the implications for housing rights, affordability, and broader goals of urban green justice. In response, this study explores quantitative trends in 26 mid-sized North American and European cities, utilizing greening and real estate data from the last three decades. Results show that greening becomes a more significant driver of development over time and operates to attract development in a growing number of cities, although more so in US cities. Next, in order to contextualize the quantitative results, we employ qualitative field data gathered through field work in Atlanta and Amsterdam. We contrast the greening and development trajectories of these cities by examining implications for housing rights and social justice, accounting for the fact that those cities exhibit different green gentrification trends, as demonstrated in the literature. Green gentrification is indeed a proxy for understanding housing justice implications in the relationship between greening and development. We find that Amsterdam’s legacy of housing rights and policies acts as a protection against growing inequities embedded in the relationship between urban greening, development, and gentrification. In contrast, Atlanta embodies patterns of historic racial segregation and continued gentrification of Black neighborhoods which urban greening has further intensified. This analysis shows that greening can attract real estate development across a city, but the implications need not always be harmful to social equity.

While user preferences for green space design have long remained a key subject of inquiry, most studies rely on evaluations of images due to the many challenges of creating actual green spaces for experimentation. However, researchers are increasingly aware of potential discrepancies between image perceptions and actual user behaviour, and many have thus called for more empirical analysis of how users actually interact with different green patterns to make knowledge of greenery design more valid. Although the difficulty of reconfiguring greenery in real open spaces has limited studies comparing image perceptions and actual visitors’ use, recent technological innovations in green infrastructure have made it possible to easily alter greenery layouts and compare the effectiveness of green space designs. Using both photo representations and a modular green system, we empirically tested and compared subject use and evaluations of three greenery patterns: no greenery (NO), open greenery (OP) and enveloping greenery (EN). Although the OP pattern was the most favourably evaluated on the basis of photos, our results indicate that the EN pattern has a significantly positive relationship with the number of visitors, compared with the OP and NO patterns. This finding suggests that subjective perceptions of photos or collages may not correspond to preferable greenery designs for users. Therefore, when developing new green spaces, the gap between images and actual use should be kept in mind and empirical design studies should be conducted in situ to make open spaces more attractive.