Temporal dynamics of green urban areas in Romania. A comparison between spatial and statistical data

The social function and the ecosystem services provided by green urban areas (GUAs) have long been acknowledged by both the scientific community and the public. They become even more relevant to urban sustainability and human welfare in the post-pandemic world, which still has to confront social, environmental, and energy-related issues. This study aims to provide an example of how to perform a temporal dynamics-focused analysis of GUAs in an unsatisfactory data context by comparing the results obtained via spatial and statistical datasets of 35 cities in Romania considering the 2006–2018 period as a reference. This integration represents a compromise solution that should offer insights into the GUA’s dynamics in difficult monitoring conditions determined by the absence of both high-resolution spatial datasets and metadata-enhanced statistical datasets. Specific patterns of the GUA’s dynamics are identified, and the differences between the spatial data and statistical data-based findings are discussed. For at least 78% of the analysed cities, the official statistical data show that the GUAs are larger than the ones computed via GIS, in all reference periods. The findings call for the improvement of the GUA quantification and mapping regulations and programmes, which target, among other elements, their transparency and validation.