Loss of urban green spaces in Mafikeng, South Africa

Urban green spaces provide a number of ecosystem services, including facilitating human physical and mental well-being through recreation. Although pressure from competing land uses is the primary force behind their loss through infill development in many cities globally, this paper highlights how political circumstances of municipal governance and the pursuit of development can precipitate the losses. For a remote town in the developing world context, loss rates were derived using a time series of satellite images from dates in 1992, 1995, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2008, 2014 and 2016. The images were co-registered in the same map projection, at the 20 m spatial resolution of the older images. The town's public green spaces, which included parks and sports facilities, were located and polygons of their areal extents created through on-screen digitizing. The polygon area values were then calculated. Long-term change in their quality was assessed by patchiness analysis of green-band images. The results show losses in both quantity and quality of the green spaces, which lessened the recreation ecosystem service. Largely due to low prioritization of their maintenance, the municipal authorities permitted the conversion of the green spaces into commercial uses and social amenities such as schools and housing. Policy-based remedial measures are recommended, including increased greenness and incorporating the creation of public green spaces during municipal development planning.