Spatial pattern of urban green spaces in a long-term compact urbanization process-A case study in China

In the process of compact city development, the limited availability of the land resources for green space (GS) would represent a major challenge for urban environments. In this paper, the long-term compact urbanization process of an island city (Xiamen, China) was selected as an example to analyze the historical spatial patterns of GS within the built environment. This study focused on urban GS at a neighborhood scale to analyze GS on a fine scale. Urban GS was extracted using the normalized difference vegetation index based on GF-1 remote sensing images. The results revealed several trends: (1) Newer built-up areas had a larger proportion of GS, more diversified GS types, and larger per-capita GS area. (2) The proportion of GS within various urban functional land use types presented great differences, both at the class level (age of the built-up area) and at the landscape level (the entire built-up area). (3) Significant differences in the proportion of GS and per-capita GS area were identified among various residential land types. The results from this study can contribute to the practical application of urban planning and policy-making.