Planning of Urban Green Spaces: An Ecological Perspective on Human Benefits

Abstract

In the context of urban land-use growth and the consequent impacts on the environment, green spaces provide ecosystem services for human health. The ecosystem services concept synthesises human–environmental interactions through a series of combined components of biodiversity and abiotic elements, linking ecological processes and functions. The concept of green infrastructure (GI) in the urban context emphasises the quality and quantity of urban and peri-urban green spaces and natural areas. In dense urban contexts, the applications of GI are limited and not applied to the potential urban spaces such as roofs and gardens. Often, roofs are characterised by impermeable paved surfaces with negative effects on human well-being, whereas garden designs do not consider social needs and environmental interactions. The role of urban stressors or the urban context as a driving force or pressure of urban green space is not always well understood and employed in the planning of green spaces. This is partly due to a knowledge gap between different science disciplines that operate on different scales, from single processes of the plants (which focus on plant responses to environmental stresses affecting human well-being) to urban ecosystems (which focus on the biodiversity and urban space planning–human well-being relationship). This can create a paradox, as green spaces that are not adequately designed might not produce the expected effects. In this paper, an overview of benefits and limitations of applying the ecosystem services approach when designing green spaces is presented. The focus is on the main urban ecosystem services provided by green roofs and community gardens such as GI that can represent strategies to provide ecological and social multifunctionality to waterproofed surfaces connected to the buildings and low-exploited gardens being the main areas that affect dense urban settlements, and thus, increasing the ecosystem services in the urban environment, such as reducing the Urban Heat Island, as well as flooding events. Specifically, the paper highlights (i) feedback between ecological processes and functions that support ecosystem services, (ii) urban environmental stresses in relation to disservices that these can create for human well-being and (iii) key issues that should be considered in the planning and design of urban ecosystem services. Such a new vision of urban ecosystem services highlights the need to look at GI as an active part of the urban space design in the built environment.

Tourism Effect on the Spatiotemporal Pattern of Land Surface Temperature (LST): Babolsar and Fereydonkenar Cities (Cases Study in Iran)

“…In the case investigated in this study (Babolsar and Fereydonkenar), tourism had a significant moderating effect on the LST in the tourism zones through developing green spaces that were constantly irrigated, and constructing on bare lands that were generally covered with sand. Although this study focused on the effects of the physical development of tourism instead of urban development, its results on the correlation between the land cover indices such as NDVI, MNDWI and EBBI with the LST are consistent with previous research [92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110].…”

“…This result shows that the LST has increased with increases in the area of built-up and bare lands, while increasing the area of vegetation and water bodies has reduced the LST in the study area. These particular results is in line with previous research showing the significant effect of vegetation on the LST [37,[100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110]. In this regard, Rahman et al [97], by modeling the spatial changes in the coastal lands and their effects on the LST characteristics, showed that physical changes due to urban development and built-up lands have a direct and significant effect on the LST, and this could pose a challenge for the residents of the studied areas in the future.…”

An Analysis of the Effects of Development-Restricted Areas on Land Price Using Spatial Analysis

“…Regarding the first role of greenbelts, Benítez et al [31] insist that greenbelts function as a reserve of open spaces around urban concentrations by conserving areas of natural vegetation and agricultural lands around cities. Greenbelts are also used as a device to protect farms from urban proliferation [32][33][34]. The authors also suggested new functions of greenbelts, such as reducing the negative potential impact of climate change, urban islands, and flood risks around the cities [35].…”

Water-Stressed Plants Do Not Cool: Leaf Surface Temperature of Living Wall Plants under Drought Stress

“…It has long been known that urban heat islands (UHIs) occur in densely built-up areas and can be 5-6 • C warmer than the surrounding landscape [6]. Therefore, adequate and sustainable urban planning that mitigates the consequences of global increases in temperatures and the associated negative effects on human health is necessary [7][8][9][10]. This includes the use of materials such as thermochromic or radiative cooling structures to decrease the urban temperature or the intensive use of urban greenery and water for evaporative cooling [11].…”