Open space roads5/7/2023 Such maps can also help identify urban ecological networks and their ecosystem services (Ahern 2013), which in turn can be used to inform nature-based strategies for improving city conditions and reducing climate change impacts (Hobbie and Grimm 2020). Maps of open space in cities therefore represent current existing and potential future green infrastructure, and they can inform open-space preservation, enhance peoples' access to and connections among open spaces, and be used to identify optimal locations for new green spaces and to guide construction and redevelopment processes. In highly urbanized environments, these open or unoccupied spaces also offer some relief from congestion and in many cases could be planted to become green spaces for climate adaptation (Kim et al 2018). Urban open spaces include the air space above sidewalks and roads, undeveloped land, open water, and the landscaping and air space associated with various categories of buildings, in addition to urban parks and green spaces. However, urban open space is a broader category that includes all areas not occupied by urban structures. Green spaces may also be able to provide a network of suitable habitats for species movement (Aronson et al 2017). The benefits of urban green spaces include reduction of urban heat island effects (Zhang et al 2017, Yang et al 2017), reduction of runoff volume (Fintikakis et al 2011, Li et al 2017, Giacomoni and Joseph 2017), and stress relief (Thompson et al 2012). Open spaces in cities are often only thought of as parks or green spaces, which are widely recognized for their beneficial effects, even though they are declining in the majority of cities (Haaland and Konijnendijk van den Bosch 2015, James et al 2015). As cities grow, examining the patterns of their open spaces holistically can inform the site selection of new green spaces, while ongoing urban redevelopment provides opportunities to create new useable green spaces and to strengthen the existing networks of open space (Rovai et al 2014). This trend increases human need for open space in urban areas to offset the physical and psychological impacts of being disconnected from nature, a need amplified by the urban challenges of designing and preparing for climate change adaptation (Georgescu et al 2014) and mitigation (Childers et al 2015). Over half the global human population live in cities and nearly 70% will do so by 2050 (United Nations 2013). The integration of a spatial model typically used for conservation assessments with city planning provides useful additional context for building urban health. Nine new urban parks would provide relief for the most highly-impacted areas, where the flow of open space is lowest and where no green spaces are available within 300 m. Of the remainder, 210 km (8.1%) are located in the areas with the least connections to green spaces. For urban street trees, 44.3% of the 2588 km of the city's major roads are already planted with street trees. ![]() Of the remaining 465 locations, 276 are in areas with the lowest-open space connections. ![]() We found 2910 of 3375 (86.2%) locations where urban green spaces already exist within 300 m for city residents. Combining these criteria permits rank-prioritization of locations where new green spaces would most improve residents' access. We combined the resulting open-space connectivity map with distance-based indices for existing urban parks and street trees. We modelled all open-space connections across 605 km 2 in Seoul, population 10.3 million, using Omniscape, a landscape connectivity model. Further, the gradient of interconnections among open spaces can be used to prioritize urban greening locations to build green networks. Including open spaces such as empty lots, ground- and air-spaces surrounding buildings, and spaces associated with roads and other linear features can improve planning for urban greenspaces by identifying areas of opportunity for additional greening. Recent research identified the need for multi-criteria indices of access to urban green spaces. ![]() However, as cities renew themselves through urban redevelopment and climate-adaptation, opportunities arise to improve people's access to urban green areas that can be informed by modeling the network of urban open spaces. As human populations move into cities they are increasingly isolated from the natural world, with associated negative impacts on health and well-being.
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