Butterfly taxonomic and functional diversity in the urban green spaces of Hefei city

Urbanization has profound impacts on ecological environments. Green spaces are a vital component of urban ecosystems and play a crucial role in maintaining ecological balance and enhancing sustainability. This study aimed to investigate the community composition characteristics of butterflies in urban green spaces within the context of rapid urbanization. Simultaneously, it explored the status and differences in butterfly taxonomic diversity, functional diversity, and functional traits among different types of urban green spaces, regions, and urban gradients to provide relevant insights for further improving urban green space quality and promoting biodiversity conservation. We conducted a year-long survey of 80 green spaces across different urban regions and ring roads within Hefei City, Anhui Province, with monthly sampling intervals over 187 transects. A total of 4822 butterflies, belonging to 5 families, 17 subfamilies, 40 genera, and 55 species were identified. The species richness, Shannon, Simpson, functional richness, and Rao's quadratic entropy indices of butterflies in urban park green spaces were all significantly higher than those in residential and street green spaces(P < 0.05). Differences in butterfly diversity and functional traits among different urban regions and ring roads were relatively minor, and small-sized, multivoltine, and long flying duration butterflies dominated urban green spaces. Overall, these spaces offer more favorable habitats for butterflies. However, some residential green spaces and street green spaces demonstrate potential for butterfly conservation.

Research on the Spatio-Temporal Evolution and Driving Forces of Green Spaces in the Central Urban Area of Zunyi City

Green space,as a medium for carrying out urban functions and guiding urban development,is becoming a scarce resource along with the urbanization process and the intensification of environmental problems.In the face of the spatial mismatch between high demand and low supply,it is of great significance to clarify the evolution mechanism of green space to undertake national spatial planning,protect the natural strategic resources in the urban fringe area,and promote the sustainable development of the“three living spaces.”The study focuses on the Zunyi City Center,selecting the 20 years of rapid development following its establishment as a city as the study period.It explores the dynamic evolution of green space and the main driving forces during different periods using remote-sensing image data.The study shows that from 2003 to 2023,the total scale of green space has an obvious decreasing trend along with the expansion of the urban built-up area.A large amount of arable land is being converted to construction land,resulting in a sudden decrease in arable land area.In the past 10 years,the comprehensive land use dynamics have accelerated.Still,the spatial difference has gradually narrowed,indicating that the overall development intensity of Zunyi City’s central urban area has increased.There is a gradual spread of the trend to the hilly areas.The limiting effect of the mountainous natural environment on the city’s development has gradually diminished under the superposition of external factors,such as economic development,industrial technological upgrading,and policy orientation so the importance of the effective protection and rational utilization of urban green space has become more prominent.

Utilisation of green urban space for food sufficiency and the realisation of the sustainable development goals-UK stakeholders perspective

The exponential growth of food demand due to the increasing global population has the potential to seriously threaten the quality and quantity of food supplies due to climate change.This study explores the utilisation of green urban spaces for achieving food self-sufficiency by investigating the extent to which sustainable urban farms could be used to reduce the consumption of imported produce in the UK.It also examines urban farming stakeholders'perspective on how food self-sufficiency can help realise the SDGs especially SDG 2(Zero hunger)and SDG 13(Climate action).The study adopts a mixed method approach through a survey with 115 respondents and semi-structured interviews conducted with 12 respondents from 4 different urban farming stakeholder groups.The findings of this study presented a strong correlation between stakeholders who had concerns about where their food came from and the carbon footprint of imported produce.The research shows that,urban farms will no doubt play a vital role in the future of food security in our cities/communities and that the SDGs could be realised through sustainable urban farms implemented within the relevant planning regulations/policies.

Diversity and Application of Herbaceous Flowers in Urban Road Greening in Hefei City

In urban road greening,the planting of ground cover flowers is essential,and herbaceous flowers are an important part.Through the investigation on the diversity of herbaceous flowers in urban road green spaces of Hefei City,the types,colors,application frequency and planting of herbaceous flowers in urban road green spaces were statistically analyzed,and the application forms of herbaceous flowers in the road greening of Hefei City were studied.The characteristics and problems of herbaceous flowers in the road greening of Hefei City were found,and some development suggestions were put forward.

Ecological Planning for Urban Green Space System——A Case Study of Chongqing Economic and Technological Development Zone

Based on overview of development history and research advances of do- mestic and foreign urban green space system planning, this paper made clear rele- vant concepts of the urban green space system. Urban green space system is a key region for protecting ecological resources. Taking Chongqing Economic and Technological Development Zone as an example, on the basis of in-depth survey, it made a systematic study on green space system planning combining current situa- tions of green space and regional spatial characteristics of Chongqing Economic and Technological Development Zone. It discussed how to restore and build urban green space system, protect ecological environment, and promote regional economic de- velopment and harmony between human and nature through design of ecological technologies and landscape in the ecological planning of urban green space system.

Analysis of problems in urban green space system planning in China

This paper discusses the major problems in urban green space system （UGSS） planning at both general and special planning levels in China. At general planning level, the problems of the UGSS are mainly from the ignorance in the characteristics of urban nature spaces and the limitation factors of the urban planning system. Great importance is attached to the green spaces in the built area of city, but the green spaces in surrounding areas of the city is unnoticed. Furthermore, because the area of UGSS planning is strictly limited by the administrative zoning, the green space system loses its integrity and rationality in spatial patterns. The schedules of urban development planning mismatched the paces and progresses of the ecological restoration cycles. At special plan level, the problem of the UGSS in China is that the green spaces quantity was over emphasized but the rationality of their layouts is neglected.. Meanwhile, the requirement of the spatial structures and the green spaces layouts to balance between the urban development and the natural ecological environments is often ignored. With regard to the layouts in the UGSS planning practices, the existing problems are the compromising to the existing land-uses, the ＇filling in＇ approach to plan green spaces and an over-emphasis on the layout patterns.

Factors influencing the concentration of negative air ions during the year in forests and urban green spaces of the Dapeng Peninsula in Shenzhen, China

Negative air ions(NAIs)benefit the mental and physical health of humans,but rapid urbanization can decrease the abundance of NAIs.Quantifying the spatial and seasonal distribution of NAIs and determining the factors that infl uence the concentration during urbanization is thus essential.In the present study of a typical developing urban district in southern China,negative air ion concentrations(NAICs)in 60 forests sites and 30 urban green spaces were quantifi ed on seven consecutive days in each of the four seasons.Large seasonal variations in NAIC were revealed in forests and urban green spaces with trough values in summer.NAIC progressively decreased from forests to urban green spaces and was infl uenced by local land morphology,vegetation characteristics,and climatic factors.The vast,heavily vegetated northeastern region was the richest area for NAIs,whereas the narrow central region(urbanized area)was the poorest,implying dramatic impacts of urbanization on the spatial distribution of NAIs.The relationship between air temperature and NAIC was better fi tted with a quadratic equation than a linear equation.Moreover,the NAIC was more sensitive to local morphology in urban green spaces than in urban forests,indicating the vulnerability of NAIs in urbanized areas.Therefore,the appropriate design of local urban morphology is critical.

SPATIAL GRADIENT ANALYSIS OF URBAN GREEN SPACES COMBINED WITH LANDSCAPE METRICS IN JINAN CITY OF CHINA

Urban green spaces have been arisen growing concern responded to the social and environmental costs of urban sprawl. A wide range of planning and policies has been and/or will be designed to protect urban green spaces and optimize their spatial pattern. A better design or planning of urban green space can make a major contribution to quality of environment and urban life, and furthermore can decide whether we can have a sustainable development in the urban area. Information about the status quo of urban green spaces can help planners design more effectively. However, how to quantify and capture such information will be the essential question we face. In this paper, to quantify the urban green space, a new method comprising gradient analysis, landscape metrics and GIS was developed through a case of Jinan City. The results demonstrate: 1) the gradient analysis is a valid and reliable instrument to quantify the urban green space spatial pattern precisely; 2) using moving window, explicit landscape metrics were spatially realized. Compared with quantifying metrics in the entire landscape, it would be better to link pattern with process and establish an important basis for analyzing the ecological and socioeconomic functions of green spaces.

Evaluation method of the ecological benefits of urban green spaces and application conditions

The importance of ecological benefit analyses about green space systems has been widely discussed on the basis of a perceived bias towards the landscaping effect of green spaces to be built in urban areas as opposed to the perception of comprehensive ecological benefits of designed plant communities. Given the basic principle of ecological benefit analyses and evaluation methods widely applied today, the methodology to calculate ecological benefits and to model the expansion of urban green spaces by CITY- green 5.0 and its conditions for application were explored. We propose that aerial images can be substituted by AutoCAD graphics of a green space containing detailed information of plant dispositions by digitizing the key features during the working process in order to evaluate the ecological benefits quickly and to offer proper guidance to the establishment of small scale green spaces in urban areas. The theoretical foundation, potential application range and prospects for extension of the method are introduced by using the analysis of ecological benefits of the green spaces on the campus of Southwest Forestry College, Kunming, as an example.

Construction of Ecological Network for Urban Green Space System from the Perspective of Landscape Ecology:A Case Study of Wanzhou District, Chongqing Municipality

Green spaces in Wanzhou District, Chongqing Municipality were not closely linked and failed to form an integrated ecological network, this paper analyzed and assessed current situation of green spaces in the local area from the perspective of landscape ecology, and then established the landscape ecology-oriented ecological network construction, restructured green paces in Wanzhou District using the landscape composition of "patch–corridor–matrix", and connected the scattered green patches using green corridors, so as to form a reasonable ecological network of green spaces.

Ecological Planning and Design of Urban Green Space System of Sanya City

The construction of International Tourism Island has accelerated the development of Sanya City. The population aggregation and the external extension of urban area have brought a lot of negative effects, such as discontinuities of green space matrix, dysfunction of green wedge permeation, deficiency of eco-corridor, structural imbalance of green space system and so on. The overall layout of Green space system known as "One Belt & Three Bays, One Core & Six Towns, Two Axes & Three Wedges, Two Net Synchronous-construction" strengthens the eco-connection among different groups and green space in central area of the city, and realizes the collaborative construction of both resource corridor and landscape corridor. The eco-layout of green core, green corridor and green patch helps keep the integrity of large vegetation patches, enhances the eco-connection of different types of green space and improves finger-shaped network of urban green space. The most efficient way to promote the circulation of urban ecosystem and the positive development of Sanya City is to plan multilevel and three-dimensional eco-space structure and maximize ecological benefits of green space system.

Optimal Design of Street-side Green Spaces: A Case Study of Tiaoshan Cultural Park in Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province

Street-side green spaces are located by urban roads, serving neighboring residents and business population, they are public spaces for citizens working, relaxing and communicating with each other. Landscape design of street-side green spaces is the manifestation of city culture, history and development. Through investigating actual conditions, cultural and historical context, and neighboring traffic of Tiaoshan Cultural Park, this study summarizes deficiencies of the original plant and landscape setting designs, and proposes optimal designs of the park according to the design principles of street-side green spaces.

Application of Drought-resistant Varieties in Urban Green Spaces

As the connotations of urban green spaces and urban eco-green spaces have been more realized,drought-resistant green spaces have become a unique development trend,and drought-resistant flowers have been more applied in green spaces.This paper summarized characteristics of drought-resistant flowers,foreign and domestic researches in this field,advantages and disadvantages of their application in urban green spaces,and proposed key directions of the future researches.

Benefits and Challenges of Urban Green Spaces

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the benefits,and challenges towards providing multifunctional urban green spaces.The results are based on critical analysis of study findings from different cities in Europe,America and to a lesser extent in Asia.Inner-city green spaces are especially important for improving air quality through uptake of pollutant gases and particulates which are responsible for respiratory infections.Due to their amenity and aesthetics,green spaces increase property value.To ensure multifunctional role of urban a green space is achieved,in particular the social and psychological role,certain standards of quantity,quality and distribution within the urban area should be adequately established.Green spaces need to be uniformly distributed throughout the city area,although each does not need to be extremely large but should be large enough to accommodate the city population.

Green Infrastructure and Its Inspiration for Urban Green Space System in China

Currently, urban Green Space Systems in China show fragile ecological conditions, the overseas Green Infrastructure is a new idea to construct urban green ecological spaces. Typical Green Infrastructure construction cases in the U. K., such as London greenbelt, park system, green corridor, green chain and Green Grid were studied to analyze problems of China urban Green Space System planning, construction, and management, so as to propose suggestions for improving ecological functions of the urban Green Space System.

Advances in Research on Urban Green Spaces from the Perspective of Urban Geography

The construction of urban green space has attracted extensive attention of researchers under the background of urban sustainable development and ecological civilization construction.The research of urban green space involves ecology,geography,economics,sociology and other disciplines,among which geography has played an important role in promoting the study and practice of green space in terms of research perspectives,methods and techniques,planning and management.In this paper,the important role of urban geography in green space research is analyzed from defi nition,classifi cation to multidisciplinary background,and the research and practice progress of green space in urban geography are summarized in four aspects:characteristics and division of green space,relationship between green space and urban regional structure,service function of urban green space,and the relationship between green space and urban development.Finally,the practical achievements of green space research are illustrated from the perspective of urban geography.

GIS-Based Analysis to Identify the Distribution and Accessibility of Urban Green Space in Dhaka Metropolitan City, Bangladesh

Urban Green Space (UGS) plays an important role in minimizing the negative effects of urbanization on city dwellers, which is predominantly factored into the accessibility to UGS. This study elucidated the distribution and accessibility of UGS in Dhaka, Bangladesh considering the paucity of such important scientific studies in the given area. The methodological structure of this study employed a multispectral Landsat satellite image from 2020 for identifying the logically defined UGSs, as well as a minimum proxy distance being the parameter to estimate accessibility to the UGS through a primary survey scheme and literature review. Considering UGS as a public area, we adopted a hybrid (combination of supervised and unsupervised classification) method followed by post-classification for UGS distribution assessment. The unsupervised classification identified the overall distribution of green spaces, whereas the anomalies of generated classes were rectified during the post-classification. Following the study findings, UGS in Dhaka metropolitan city accounts for only 602 ha or 1.9% of the total geographical space, with Ramna thana ranked as the highest contributor of 111 ha. However, in terms of accessibility to the UGS by city residents, 19.9% of the buildings in Dhaka metropolitan city were computed to be within the determined proxy distance of 500 m around the UGS. Also, parallel to UGS distribution, green space in Ramna thana (111 ha) exhibited the highest accessibility rate (64%) to the UGS compared with other thanas in Dhaka metropolitan city. The baseline findings will contribute to the long-term sustainable urban planning and development of more accessible green spaces in the study area.

Study on the Distribution Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Park Green Space in Wuhan City

The distribution characteristics of park green space in Wuhan City were studied by standard deviation ellipse(SDE)method,average nearest neighbor index,kernel density estimation(KDE)method and scale index method.At the same time,the influencing factors of its distribution were discussed from three aspects of nature,social economy and culture with a geographical detector.The results show that(1)the distribution of park green space in Wuhan was relatively concentrated,and the directionality was not strong.The distribution mode was clustered mode.There were four main aggregation centers,which were located in Jianghan District,Qingshan District,Dongxihu District and Wuchang District respectively.Among them,the scale index of Jianghan District was the highest,up to 0.5902,while that of Xinzhou district was the lowest,only 0.0047.(2)The order of interpretation intensity of park green space distribution in Wuhan was population density(0.382)>regional GDP(0.278)>location of historical relics(0.165)>urbanization rate(0.136)>watershed zoning(0.069)>altitude(0.012).(3)The interaction of population density and watershed zoning had the strongest explanation for the distribution of park green space in Wuhan.Except for the influence of population density,the interaction of urbanization rate and regional GDP had the strongest explanation for the distribution of park green space in Wuhan.

Urban Pocket Park System Planning Based on Low Carbon Comprehensive Benefits: A Case Study of Chaowai District in Beijing

Low carbon landscape development is an emerging approach of landscape design,which aims to promote sustainable development,and reduce energy consumption and environmental impact by reducing carbon emissions.As an important component of low carbon landscape construction,the construction of urban pocket park system based on mini-parks plays a crucial role in improving the urban greening level,increasing the urban green space,alleviating the urban pressure,improving the living and healthy environment of urban residents,and promoting the urban ecological balance.Taking Chaowai district of Beijing as an example,this paper calculates the ecological value of trees including energy contribution,carbon sequestration,ability to improve rainfall runoff and aesthetic value by collecting the information of trees and the plot on which the trees are located through the i-Tree platform,which provides important reference value for the urban pocket park system planning to create low carbon comprehensive benefits.

Original Research Confounding associations between green space and outdoor artificial light at night: Systematic investigations and implications for urban health

Excessive urbanization leads to considerable nature deficiency and abundant artificial infrastructure in urban areas,which triggered intensive discussions on people's exposure to green space and outdoor artificial light at night(ALAN).Recent academic progress highlights that people's exposure to green space and outdoor ALAN may be confounders of each other but lacks systematic investigations.This study investigates the associations between people's exposure to green space and outdoor ALAN by adopting the three most used research paradigms:population-level residence-based,individual-level residencebased,and individual-level mobility-oriented paradigms.We employed the green space and outdoor ALAN data of 291 Tertiary Planning Units in Hong Kong for population-level analysis.We also used data from 940 participants in six representative communities for individual-level analyses.Hong Kong green space and outdoor ALAN were derived from high-resolution remote sensing data.The total exposures were derived using the spatiotemporally weighted approaches.Our results confirm that the negative associations between people's exposure to green space and outdoor ALAN are universal across different research paradigms,spatially non-stationary,and consistent among different socio-demographic groups.We also observed that mobility-oriented measures may lead to stronger negative associations than residence-based measures by mitigating the contextual errors of residence-based measures.Our results highlight the potential confounding associations between people's exposure to green space and outdoor ALAN,and we strongly recommend relevant studies to consider both of them in modeling people's health outcomes,especially for those health outcomes impacted by the co-exposure to them.