Benchmark assessment of recreational public Urban Green space provisions: A case of typical urbanizing Indian City, Nagpur

ndian cities throughout, are witnessing unprecedented urbanization seen as both exacerbating urban sprawl scenario as well as over densification of existing urban cores. As compared to the urban sprawl, the urbanization has more severe impact on the existing urban cores, and the firefighting exercise to provide the immediate need of the physical infrastructure is leading to rapid decline and degradation of already stressed public urban green space (UGS). Moreover, in the emerging urban centers, the conventional statistical based land-use planning approach coupled with the lack of availability of categorized ground level data hinders the long-term vision towards protection, provision and planning of UGS. With an aim to establish a context specific benchmark assessment, the study assessed recreational public UGS availability, proximity and service area gap in an Indian context taking a case of typical urban center Nagpur city through benchmark assessment (BMA) to understand the recreational UGS provisions. The initial thematic mapping, data synthesis and key findings were generated using ArcGIS 10.5.1 software. The objectives were to evaluate per-capita recreational public UGS availability and its proximity to identify the proportional population without access to greens and zone wise service area gap. The per-capita recreational public UGS came as 3.65 m(2) at city scale, however across zones it varied significantly from 22 m(2) to 0.3 m(2). Similarly, in terms of proximity and service area gap the city showcased wide disparity between eastern, central and western zones. Thus, the recreational public UGS provisions have shown shortcoming in both the indicators, and the identified deficiency was way below the threshold limits provided by the national planning agencies. The spatial data of the research was aimed to facilitate planning, to ensure quantitative adequacy as well as spatial distribution to maximize UGS benefits to larger population and enhancement of quality of life of city inhabitants. While further in-depth understanding is required to capture perception, function, usage and demand of UGS, benchmark assessment data provides baseline data to guide more qualitative studies in future. The adopted methodology for BMA can be replicated in other emerging Indian cities as well as cities of developing countries facing loss of UGS against urbanization.