Access and exposure to urban green space biodiversity: determining the relationship between green space biodiversity attributes and indices of deprivation within Great Britain.

Keywords: green space, deprivation, inequality, biodiversity, remote sensing
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Whilst it is demonstrated that urban green space is critical for addressing issues associated with urban liveability and sustainability, access and exposure to these environments is not always uniform across different urban communities. Furthermore, there is limited research that explores the link between specific urban green space attributes (biodiversity; accessibility; amenities; facilities; land use; and incivilities) and factors of deprivation (income; employment; health; education, skills and training; geographic access to services; crime; and housing). In this paper, we investigate a number of biodiversity attributes associated with urban green space and parks across Great Britain and determine their relationship with various indices of deprivation. To do this, we exploit nationally available datasets (LiDAR imagery, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Land Cover Map, Ordnance Survey Open Green Space and Ordnance Survey MasterMap Topography) and utilise geospatial analytical and image classification techniques to analyse remotely sensed satellite derived imagery. These methods helped to generate a portfolio of biodiversity attributes for all publicly accessible green spaces across Great Britain including, but not limited to, vegetation structure and complexity, tree canopy cover, proportion and presence of blue space and diversity of land cover types. By doing so, we provide a more nuanced understanding of both park quality and qualities across Great Britain and determine relationships between green space biodiversity and indices of deprivation. We highlight that access and exposure to green space attributes is unequal across Great Britain and that some neighbourhoods have distinctively lesser access and exposure to parks and urban green space.