Analysis Options for Urban Green Spaces Based on Unified Urban Masks: Selected Results for European Cities

Ulrich Schumacher ()
Additional contact information
Ulrich Schumacher: Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Rostock, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 6, 18059 Rostock, Germany

Land, 2023, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-28

Abstract: At a time of rising urbanisation and climate change, urban green spaces (UGSs) are an essential element to help adapt to extreme weather events. Especially in urban core areas, heat and drought are regarded as human stress factors. The delineation of such areas constitutes an important reference geometry in topographic geodata (urban mask). This article deals with possibilities for investigating UGSs in European cities—based on unified urban masks—by applying city-wide metrics to Copernicus data (Urban Atlas including the Street Tree Layer). Both public and tree-covered urban green spaces are examined in detail. Selected results are presented for 30 European cities that display a wide range of urban structures. The spatial reference to uniformly delineated urban masks places the analytical focus of city-wide metrics onto corresponding core areas. In general, the values of UGS metrics vary considerably between cities, indicating the strong influence of city-specific factors on urban structures in Europe. For the comparative analysis of tree-covered urban areas, the Urban Green Raster Germany and a municipal tree register are used to provide additional data sources. The regular updating of the Copernicus dataset means that green spaces in European cities can be monitored, also using urban masks.

Keywords: urban green space; tree cover; urban mask; spatial analysis; Copernicus Urban Atlas; Street Tree Layer; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/1/27/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/1/27/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2023:i:1:p:27-:d:1306657

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().