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The Green Credit Tool is evaluated as a method to quantify the value of green‐spaces and to determine how these green‐space‐values can be replaced or compensated for within urban spatial planning projects.

Amersfoort Local Municipality created the Green Credit Tool to ensure protection and enhancement of the urban green totality. The tool is described and evaluated based on three core elements: the value matrix, the collection of values and green compensation. Findings were based on case studies in Parkweelde and Randerbroek (Amersfoort, The Netherlands).

Green‐planning is not just about flora and fauna, but also about planning for economic benefits and thus needs to have a quantifiable value. The Green Credit Tool enhances integrated green‐planning by means of the value matrix (identifying values of green), collecting values (participation and stakeholder‐identification) and compensation (protecting green spaces).

Assessment of green values will differ between users, experts and between locations.

The Green Credit Tool introduces a different perspective to green‐spaces that can add value to urban environments and thus creates economic spin‐offs. It stresses the need for environmental issues to play a greater role in future planning processes.

Green‐planning is known to have various psychological benefits. The Green Credit Tool is a communication tool and thus incorporates public opinions, enhances social responsibility and enhances awareness of the broader benefits of green spaces.

The Green Credit Tool creates an integrated approach towards the planning of green‐spaces, enhancing the value of green areas and thus ensuring qualitative urban planning and sustainable economic development.

On the basis of the research data of 120 enterprises from 10 development zones in Gansu Province, we conducted regional planning research combining enterprise architecture with ecological green space environment system. We determined that the largest part of the green space pattern is the “other green space,” which mainly depends on the formation of super large plantation. However, this part is consistently decreasing in recent years. Affiliated green space became the largest in the green space patterns because of the high degree of vertical greening of the enterprise architecture in the development zones. The high fragmentation of the affiliated green space also leads to the high fragmentation of the entire green space of the development zone. In future regional planning of development zones, future planning of the green space can take the current green space as the basis, use the road green space and green corridors nearby waters as the basic framework to connect other patterns of green space, and form a ring-shaped enclosure, reticular structure, and wedge-shaped and dotted supplemented regional pattern. Meanwhile, the road green space system can be reasonably arranged by setting new green space spots at road intersections and key strategic positions to connect the isolated green space patches and improve the connectivity of the green space.

Public spaces within our cities are being redefined through a wide range of nature-based solutions (NBS) including green spaces. In this chapter, we will focus on public green spaces in the wider sense. If well planned and managed, green spaces can promote social inclusiveness by enhancing the livebility of neighborhoods and promoting the development of social interactions. The creation of new green space does not automatically lead to socially just and inclusive development; co-benefits should be available and accessible to the entire community. Prejudices, marginalization, and discrimination on socioeconomic condition, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or disability still prevent the equitable distribution of these benefits and need to be fully understood before any planning process is undertaken. The governance of public green spaces is still viewed primarily as a matter for the state or as a purely private activity. It is important, therefore, to identify ways to ensure the integrated and transdisciplinary participation of diverse actors, as is shown in some examples from different countries. The planning and design of green interventions should start with the evaluation of existing or potential trade-offs between environmental and social development. Urban green spaces must be designed as places for multiple and diverse social groups. If all these issues are duly considered and addressed, NBS can serve as climate mitigation and adaptation tools that produce co-benefits for societal well-being, thereby serving as strong investment options for sustainable urban development and making our cities green, healthier, and happier places to live.

The purpose of this paper is to review the topic “urban green space” focusing on its social benefits and measure techniques in terms of monetary value and accessibility. It suggests potential research direction by using an integrated valuation and measurement framework, and concludes that urban green space valuation in the providers’ perspective as well as accessibility analysis in the consumers’ perspective are useful tools that provide significant measure techniques in urban green space planning.

The paper uses a systematic approach to build up a conceptual framework that quantifies social benefits of green space from provider and consumer perspectives. The literature review indicates some limitations of existing techniques of valuation and accessibility analyses, which entails an integrated model of measurements.

The paper explores social benefits of urban green space, which includes recreational opportunities, aesthetic enjoyments, adjusting psychological well‐being and physical health, enhancing social ties, and providing educational opportunities. To analyze existing evaluation and measure techniques of urban green space, the paper points out that a single measurement only evaluates certain aspects of urban green space, which may not always be suitable to comprehensively assess social benefits from both providers’ and consumers’ perspectives. Considering this limitation, the paper offers an integrated model to measure urban green space that may deal with current limitations.

The originality of the study resides in designing an integrated model including valuation and measure techniques. It certainly offers an important avenue to evaluate social benefits of urban green space.

The purpose of this paper is to link economic value to urban green spaces to enhance the value of green urban spaces, along with the added benefit it can offer to the urban environment.

As part of the VALUE project (Valuing Attractive Landscapes in the Urban Economy, made possible by INTERREG IVB North West Europe, European Regional Development Fund, European Territorial Cooperation, 2007‐2013), this development approach was designed to enhance the planning of qualitative urban spaces by linking an economic value to green urban spaces, to enhance value and meaning.

Based on case studies conducted in The Netherlands, the approach proves that by linking an economic value to green urban spaces, space is considered differently, authorities tend to prioritize these spaces and additional spinoffs realize.

The notion of green‐value is subjective and differs between users, experts and between locations.

The paper provides local authorities with a new approach to spatial planning, considering the economic value of green urban spaces.

The paper transforms the way in which green urban spaces are valued and planned; by realizing the intrinsic value of green urban spaces, in terms of social, environmental and economic benefit.

The Value Added Planning approach stresses the need for qualitative planning processes that will enhance future economic value and sustainable development initiatives. The green environment is hard to quantify in terms of economic value, but it is this intrinsic value that can provide future benefit and sustainability in terms of place management and development.

Despite its worldwide reputation as an effective solution to sustainable building development and energy efficiency, green roofs in Malaysian cities are rarely accessible. The architecture of the building primarily influences public accessibility, crime watch and safety level and events that encourage the public's engagement, which is evident in crowd density. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the social potential of highly accessible Malaysian green roofs as public space, initiated by the lack of local published material discussing on this topic.

This study reviews the current issues concerning limited public accessibility on Malaysian public institution green roofs by systematic literature review and thematic analysis by comparing the effectiveness of applicable public space strategies on the green roof.

The criteria that have been identified and considered as study parameters include architecture, safety and surveillance, and active functions. Through systematic review of available literature, these characteristics contribute positively to public participation within the public realm.

The exploration of the social potential would establish a green roof as a thriving public space that welcomes the public from all ages and backgrounds, addressing the general public accessibility towards outdoor recreational areas, especially within dense urbanisation with diminishing green spaces.

This research highlights the key characteristics of the highly functional public space that could be applied in developing a guideline for designing future green roofs with high accessibility potential for the public in the city area, in parallel with the anticipated future growth in demand for green roofs infrastructure surrounding public buildings.

An important facet of student’s sense of belonging is students’ relationships with, and time spent in, the university campus. The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion that access to campus “green space”, including parks, fields and gardens, may bolster students’ sense of belonging, improve well-being feelings and promote place attachment.

The authors surveyed students in different locations (including three green and one non-green campus spaces) across a large UK campus-based Northern institution. 146 students participated in the study in one of the four campus locations. The authors investigated how being in green spaces on campus may impact students’ sense of belonging, well-being and place attachment. The authors also qualitatively explored students’ perceptions of campus spaces through Ahn’s (2017) 10 Words Question measure.

Analyses demonstrate that students surveyed in green spaces reported significantly more positive sense of belonging, compared to students surveyed in non-green campus spaces. Campus location did not impact well-being, however. Students associated green spaces on campus with “calm”, “positive emotion” and “nature” words and non-green spaces with “busy”, “social” and “students”.

Taken together, the results of this paper suggest that access to green spaces can be important for campus sense of belonging. Thus, efforts should be made to ensure the sustainability of these important spaces across university campuses.

This study crucially examines how occupying green spaces on university campuses may impact students’ feelings of belongingness. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that uses field-based methods to understand students’ feelings whilst occupying green spaces.

Conservation of green space is crucial to the sustainable urban development of China. Nanjing is a central city in the Yangtze River Delta cluster in eastern China. Owing to urbanization, the green spaces in this city have been affected significantly in terms of their scale and structure. Assessing such changes can provide a basis for environmental protection measures and sustainable development. Using Landsat remote-sensing image data from 1998 and 2007, we constructed a distribution map of the patches of green spaces in Nanjing, and analyzed and assessed the changes in scale and spatial layout of the green spaces using various landscape metrics including CA, PLAND, PD, MPS, LPI, NP, PD, TE, ED, MPI, and LSI. Coinciding with a sharp increase in urban population, the area of green spaces in Nanjing decreased by 27.06% between 1998 and 2007. The patches of green space increased by 39%, and the average area per patch decreased by about 47.52%. Green space patches were found to be unevenly distributed among the districts of Nanjing. In urban areas, significant numbers of such patches were found primarily in various types of parks, while in suburban areas, they were concentrated mainly in the hilly forestlands. Green spaces exhibited tendencies towards fragmentation, miniaturization, and discretization.

Urban green spaces support people to approach active, healthy ageing, especially in high-density cities where they compensate for limited private living spaces. This research paper aims to examine how urban green spaces support active, healthy ageing by exploring correlations between behaviour, physical setting and gender difference among older people in a highly populated urban context.

Urban parks in older neighbourhoods of Macau were selected for data collection. Photographic documentation was used to collect data, with 1,201 older people photographed identified as valid samples. Each was coded according to labels of behaviour, physical setting and gender. Chi-squared tests were conducted to assess correlations between behaviours and features of physical settings, and differences between genders in behaviours and physical settings. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to further examine associations between older people's behaviours and features of physical settings by gender.

The research reveals types and frequency of behaviours displayed, preferred environmental features for different behaviours and gender differences in behaviours and preferred environmental features. Design principles targeting active, healthy ageing should consider particular amenities and street furniture, the arrangement of trees and landscapes and the integration of open and secluded places.

Previous studies address older people's behaviour from the perspective of either environmental influence or gender difference, but there have been few studies on gendered behavioural differences among older people in urban green spaces. Analysing the behaviour–physical setting–gender relationship provides more evidence in the field of built environment studies.

This study aims to explore the effect of urban green space (UGS) on residents' subjective well-being (SWB) among different social groups.

Using national SWB and UGS data obtained from the China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook and the Chinese General Social Survey, a multiple regression model was developed to estimate the effect of UGS on residents' SWB. Grouping regression for samples from distinct socioeconomic groups was performed to further discuss group-wise differences in SWB.

The green coverage rate of built-up areas and the number of parks accessed by every 10,000 individuals are significantly positively correlated with residents' SWB, whereas the green space area per capita and greening investment ratio are significantly negatively correlated with residents' SWB; the effect of UGS on residents' SWB varies among individuals with respect to gender, age, and income, with the most significant difference observed among groups with different incomes.

The empirical results of this study are expected to support the planning and construction of UGS by providing a reference for optimizing their service capabilities and highlighting their positive role in improving residents' SWB.