Role of Urban Greening Strategies for Environmental Sustainability—A Review and Assessment in the Context of Saudi Arabian Megacities

Abdullah Addas and Ahmad Maghrabi
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Abdullah Addas: Landscape Architecture Department, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80210, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Ahmad Maghrabi: Landscape Architecture Department, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80210, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: The review and assessment of urban greening patterns play a crucial role in sustainable urban planning and green spaces (GSs) management, helping to improve human well-being. In recent years, various methods and strategies were applied to examine the relationship between GSs and environmental sustainability, but so far, no studies on systematic review and empirical assessments were carried out in Saudi Arabian context. Thus, a comprehensive review and assessment of current GSs patterns and planning strategies are important for achieving urban environmental sustainability. This study aims to assess spatial pattern of GSs across the cities and a bibliographic review on the urban greening strategies in the Saudi context. These six urban strategies were further supported from empirical evidence on Saudi cities. Geographical information system (GIS) techniques and questionnaire surveys were performed for spatial mapping of GSs and the perceived role of GSs strategies of the respondent to environmental sustainability across cities. The findings showed that (i) highest PCGS was reported from Dammam (5.4 m 2 ) followed by Riyadh (1.18 m 2 ), and Jeddah (0.5 m 2 ); (ii) most of the respondents use GSs for picnic (59%), mental well-being (53%), and physical activities (47%), respectively; (iii) GSs play a significant role for local climate regulation such as temperature control (78%) and UHI reduction (81%), and GSs provide thermal comfort (84%), respectively; and (iv) 40% respondents do not use GSs due to the lack of availability, accessibility, design, management, and safety of GSs. Thus, such findings of the study surely assist planners and policy makers to understand and implement the suggested GSs strategies to meet the satisfaction level of the respondents as well as to manage GSs at neighborhood and city level for urban environmental sustainability.

Keywords: urban greening; environmental sustainability; climate change; urban green space; accessibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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