Improving access to greenspaces in the Mediterranean city of Faro

Vanessa Duarte Pinto; Catarina Martins; José Rodrigues; Manuela Pires Rosa

doi:10.3934/environsci.2020014

AIMS Environmental Science, 2020, 7(3): 226-246. doi: 10.3934/environsci.2020014. Research article Special Issues

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Improving access to greenspaces in the Mediterranean city of Faro

Vanessa Duarte Pinto, Catarina Martins, José Rodrigues, Manuela Pires Rosa

1 Biotox Lab, MARE, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
2 Engineering Institute, University of Algarve, Campus da Penha, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal
3 Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-Being, University of Algarve, Campus da Penha, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal

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Special Issues: Green built environment

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Green infrastructure has received increasing attention in urban strategies in a sustainable and resilience context, since greenspaces provide diverse ecosystem services. Green roofs can be a form of compensating the loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity in urban areas, contribute to safe access to greenspaces, which is important in times of social isolation, due to viral pandemics, and can guarantee self-reliance food. Thus, this urban measure should be integrated in urban planning and management, by using urban indicators associated with citizens access to greenspaces. Hence, we study pedestrian accessibility to green areas and propose an urban solution to improve access to greenspaces. The assessment is developed using indicators related to the citizens living in the surroundings of green areas and the residential buildings that exist in these areas; the residents living in potential green buildings or blocks with private green roofs and the potential green buildings with private green roofs. The ideal standard distances were considered to analyze the proximity of green areas to the dwellings of residents. We used GIS for the assessment of distances over the pedestrian network. The results indicate the necessity of building green roofs through the private sector. The developed indicators provide an important contribution to the municipal management in the definition of criteria for the urban location of green roofs to promote better access to ecosystem services.

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Keywords: greenspaces; green roofs; ecosystem services; pedestrian accessibility; geographic information system

Citation: Vanessa Duarte Pinto, Catarina Martins, José Rodrigues, Manuela Pires Rosa. Improving access to greenspaces in the Mediterranean city of Faro. AIMS Environmental Science, 2020, 7(3): 226-246. doi: 10.3934/environsci.2020014

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