دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی یک ارزیابی مشارکتی روش های نقشه برداری برای سنجش مزایای پارک شهری - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Traditional urban park research has used self-reported surveys and activity logs to examine relationships between health benefits, park use, and park features. An alternative approach uses participating mapping methods. This study sought to validate and expand on previous participatory mapping research methods and findings and address spatial scaling by applying these methods to a large urban park system. Key challenges for spatial scaling included ambiguity in park classification and achieving representative sampling for larger and spatially-disbursed urban residents. We designed an internet-based public participation GIS (PPGIS) survey and used household and volunteer sampling to identify the type and locations of urban park benefits. Study participants (n = 816) identified locations of physical activities and other urban park benefits (psychological, social, and environmental) which were analyzed by park type. Consistent with previous suburb-scale research, we found significant associations between urban park type and different urban park benefits. Linear parks were significantly associated with higher intensity physical activities; natural parks were associated with environmental benefits; and community parks were associated with benefits from social interaction. Neighborhood parks emerged as significantly associated with psychological benefits. The diversity of park activities and benefits were positively correlated with park size. Distance analysis confirmed that physical benefits of parks were closest to participant domicile, while social and environmental benefits were more distant. These results validate previous suburb-scale findings despite greater variability in park types and sample populations. Future urban park research using participatory mapping would benefit from greater effort to obtain participation from under-represented populations that can induce nonresponse bias, and analyses to determine whether system-wide results can be disaggregated by suburb or neighborhood to address social inequities in urban park benefits.

5. Conclusion

In this study, we evaluated participatory mapping methods for assessing urban park benefits. The scaling-up of these methods from the suburb-level to a large urban-park system introduced greater variability in the results but multiple urban park benefits by park type associations were confirmed at the larger urban scale. Participatory mapping, with a focus on the distribution of park benefits in addition to physical design standards, can provide supplemental information to refine and adjust physical park standards.

There is contemporary academic interest in the assessment and analysis of urban areas for ecosystem services (e.g., Gómez-Baggethun & Barton, 2013; Rall et al., 2017; Woodruff & BenDor, 2016). The participatory mapping methods described in this study provide a means to assess cultural ecosystem services associated with urban parks and greenspaces. However, as noted by Ahearn et al. (2014), the assessment of urban ecosystem services alone does not provide the innovation required to inform routine urban and infrastructure development activity (Ahern, Cilliers, & Niemelä, 2014). And yet, participatory mapping offers the potential to better inform urban green infrastructure because of its spatially-explicit, systems approach to assessment focused on a range of benefits. Future research could analyze the spatial distribution of park benefits by suburb or neighborhood (spatial disaggregation) to identify social inequities in park benefits that could be addressed through further development of green infrastructure.