8B_1_A map to hear - use of sound in enhancing the map use experience
3A_4_Applying network analysis to quantify accessibility to urban greenspace for different socio-economic groups
1. Applying Network Analysis to Quantify Accessibility to Urban Greenspace (UGS) for Different Socio-economic Groups Fariba Sotoudehnia and Alexis Comber
2. Outlines Basic definition The importance of access to UGS Research objective Methodology (data source, study area and data analysis) Initial results Further work Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
3. Basic definition Urban greenspace: publicly owned and accessible open space in urban context where are covered by high degree of vegetation (e.g. urban parks, woodlands, spinney, meadows and other type of recreational green places). Accessibility: physical distance from a residential home to an UGS. Socio-economic status: is a measure to address deprivation. Townsend deprivation index is constructed from the following four census variables: overcrowding, unemployment, non car ownership, and non home ownership. Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
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5. Physical health and psychological wellbeing (Maas et al., 2008; Grahnand Stigsdotter, 2003)especially for children (Francis, 2006).
7. Environmental services(Yang et al., 2005; Fang and Ling, 2003).Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
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9. Relationship between access to greenspace and the frequency of visits in Helsinki (Neuvonen et al., 2007).
10. Analysing spatial distribution of urban greenspace against income (Heynen et al., 2006).
11. Examining differential access to urban greenspace among Arab and Jewish population in two mixed Israeli cities (Omer and Or 2004).Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
12. Research objective Research objective: Quantifying accessibility to greenspace for different socio-economic groups. Research question: Is local access to greenspace important for people? How does physical access to greenspace vary across different social groups? Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
13. Methodology : data sources 1- Greenspace data (Leicester City Council) 2- Leicester’s output areas polygons (OAs) data (UKBOURDERS) 3- Road network data (Ordnance Survey Meridian 2) 3- Census data (CASWEB) Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
16. Methodology: spatial deprivation The spatial distribution of deprivation was quantified according to the 5% threshold of the Townsend index values (Figure 2). Rating colours from yellow to dark brown represents the “least deprived”, “average” and “most deprived” OAs in Leicester. Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
18. Methodology: data analysis Table 1 The percentage of population based on provision of and access against deprivation Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
19. Data analysis: Mosaic plot Mosaic plot of access to GS against deprivation (25% threshold) Mosaic plot of access to GS against deprivation (5% threshold)
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21. Whilst the other deprived groups (average and least deprived) have “less access” than would expected under an assumption of equal physical accessibility.Sotoudehnia and Comber 2010, University of Leicester
The criteria to address poverty: (e.g. economic circumstances, health, crime, housing, educational achievement, skills and environment)Explain about Townsend Index.
The necessity of providing public with equitable accessibility to greenspace becomes particularly important under the notions of social and environmental justice due to the significant role of the areas in enhancing community identity, community attachment and improving local landscape (Matsuoka and Kaplan, 2008).Other work considering accessibility has also noted that, people who live in close proximity to greenspace have more chance to use areas frequently (Hoehner et al., 2005; Tyrväinen et al., 2004; Van Herzele and Wiedemann 2003) which contributes to peoples’ health and quality of life (Pinder et al., 2009; Santos et al., 2009; Mitchell and Popham, 2008).
Reviewing literature reveals, although a good deal of attention in the current literature has been paid to social and environmental justice relating to spatial access to urban greenspace, more research is particularly needed to substantiate physical access against socio-economic status from both qualitative and quantitative aspects. To fill in the current gap, this study aims to use GIS-based network analysis method besides initial qualitative methods to answer how do physical access and perception towards urban greenspace vary across different socio-economic groups?
Leicester is a green city: 10% parks and open spaces6% nature reserves27% gardens Leicester represents an entirely diverse mix of people from different social and cultural backgrounds.
Physical access was analysed in terms of shortest distance line from each residential output areas to the nearest greenspace access point in urban context. The underlying premise was that shorter distances are associated with greater and more frequently use of the areas (Hoehner et al., 2005; Tyrväinen et al., 2004; Van Herzele and Wiedemann 2003). The closest facility option in network analysis extension was applied to quantify different physical access points. The grey colour lines on the map show the boundary areas of each OAs.
Townsend Index values calculated based on “unemployment”, “overcrowding”, “non-car ownership”, and “non-home ownership” was joined to the attributes table of OAs. The spatial distribution of deprivation was quantified according to the deprivation score 5% from the most and least Townsend index values for each OAs.
