Urban Parks are important places for residents to engage in outdoor activities, and whether heavy metal(loid)s (HMs) in park soils are harmful to human health has aroused people's concern. A total of ...204 topsoil samples containing nine HMs were collected from 78 urban parks of Shanghai in China, and used to assess the health risks caused by HMs in soils. The results revealed that the Hg, Cd and Pb were the main enriched pollutants and posed higher ecological risks than the other HMs. Four HM sources (including natural sources, agricultural activities, industrial production and traffic emissions) were identified by combining the Positive matrix factorization model and Correlation analysis, with the contribution rate of 48.24%, 7.03%, 13.04% and 31.69%, respectively. The assessment of Probabilistic health risks indicated that the Non-carcinogenic risks for all populations were negligible. However, the Total carcinogenic risk cannot be negligible and children were more susceptible than adults. The assessment results of source-oriented health risks showed that industrial production and traffic emissions were estimated to be the most important anthropogenic sources of health risks for all populations. Our results provide scientific support needed for the prevention and control of HM pollution in urban parks.
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•Hg, Cd and Pb were identified as the most polluted HMs in the study area.•Four HM sources were identified by combining PMF model and correlation analysis.•The PMF-HRA model was developed to assess the source-oriented health risks.•The NCR for all populations was negligible, while the TCR cannot be negligible.
As COVID-19 increased people's dependency on urban parks for physical and psychological well-being, it also has uncertain impacts on park utilization. Understanding these impacts and how the pandemic ...has contributed to them is an issue that warrants urgent attention. We used multi-source spatio-temporal data to examine urban park use before and during COVID-19 in Guangzhou, China, and constructed a set of regression models to evaluate the associated factors. We found that COVID-19 has significantly reduced the overall utilization of urban parks while also exacerbating spatial unevenness. This was due to residents' limited movement distance, and the diminished role of urban transportation affecting the efficient citywide use of parks. Meanwhile, residents' increased demand for nearby parks amplified the importance of community parks, which exacerbated the consequences caused by the uneven distribution of park resources. We propose that city administrators improve the efficiency of existing parks and prioritize the adequate placement of community parks at urban fringes to improve access. Furthermore, cities with similar layouts as Guangzhou should plan for urban parks from a multi-perspective and consider the sub-city level differences to address unevenness during the current pandemic and in the future.
•COVID-19 reduced the spatial equality in the utilization of urban parks.•The pandemic had a more crucial adverse effect on park use in the urban fringes.•Diminished urban transportation affected the efficient use of parks citywide.•Urban residents frequented nearby community parks during the pandemic.•Park visitations are more necessity-driven during the pandemic.
Urban parks can mitigate the urban heat island (UHI) by creating microclimates that lower in temperature than their surroundings, which are known as park cooling effect (PCE). The local background ...climate has a significant impact on the PCE, however the dominant factors and threshold value of efficiency (TVoE) of the PCE under different local background climates are still uncertain. Here, we selected 207 urban parks in 27 cities in East China with four different local background climates, warm temperate sub-humid monsoon (WTC), northern subtropical sub-humid monsoon (NSC), northern subtropical humid monsoon (NHC), and middle subtropical humid monsoon climate (MSC), for comparative studies. The relative contributions of multi-influencing factors to the PCE and TVoE of urban parks were quantified through a multivariate stepwise regression model and curve fitting. The results show that: (1) PCE increases from WTC, NSC, NHC to MSC, and urban parks at low latitudes have a greater cooling effect in general than those at high latitudes; (2) the area of the park is the dominant factor of PCE under four different local background climates (the explanation rate exceeds 50%) and water bodies within urban parks play a more significant role in the cooling effect in high latitudes, dry areas; (3) the TVoE of park on WTC, NSC, NHC, and MSC are 0.81, 0.71, 0.70, and 0.66 ha, respectively, revealing that the background climate significantly affects the TVoE. These findings are essential to decision-makers and can provide actionable knowledge for climate adaptation planning on a regional (climate) scale.
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•Urban parks at low latitudes have a greater cooling effect.•Park area is the dominant factor of PCE under different local background climates.•Water bodies play a more significant role in PCE in high latitudes, dry areas.•The TVoE of urban parks decreased with decreasing latitude.
•We studied patterns and factors of jogging in urban parks using trajectory data.•Jogging flow of urban parks has distinct spatiotemporal agglomeration features.•Walking loops and waterscapes have ...positive effects on jogging flow.•Landscape shape index and distance to city center negatively affect jogging flow.•Mountainous settings and diverse park environments affect jogging activities.
Existing studies have seldom used large-scale trajectory data to analyze jogging activities in urban parks. Most of them have relied on traditional questionnaires and on-site interviews. Therefore, this study aims to uncover the characteristics and the potential influencing factors of jogging activities based on trajectory data recorded by a mobile app, using the case of Chongqing city. The results show that urban parks with high jogging flow are mainly distributed within the inner ring road of Chongqing, whereas urban parks with low jogging flow are newly built outside the inner ring road. The volume of jogging flow in urban parks in the spring and summer is higher than that of autumn and winter, and the volume on weekends is higher than that of weekdays. The peaks of jogging in urban parks vary across space and over time, leading to different spatiotemporal patterns. Urban parks along the subcenters, riversides, and airport corridors have morning (6–7 a.m.) and evening peaks (7–8 p.m.). Urban parks in the newly urbanized areas and industrial zones have evening peaks. The regression models show that walking loops and waterscapes have positive effects on jogging flow. The landscape shape index of urban parks and the distance to the city center negatively affect the jogging flow. Finally, the study indicates the possibility of using large-scale trajectory data to analyze jogging activities, which is helpful for urban park planners and managers to improve the frequency of jogging activity.
•Fear-evoking attributes important in park planning and management are often neglected.•Eight parks and 872 park users in Hong Kong were evaluated by a questionnaire survey.•Specific park design and ...management issues evoking fearful feelings were identified.•Park gates, undesirable elements, gender and health status induced more fear of crime.•The findings expanded knowledge base of fear of crime in a cross-cultural context.
Understanding fear-evoking factors in urban parks is important for planning and management, but such research is lacking in many cities. This study examined three groups of fear-evoking factors, including inherent park characteristics (IPC), park design and management issues (PDMI), and visitor-related concerns (VC). Besides mainly environmental factors reported in the literature, new ones such as social and personal have been proposed to explore how they may evoke fear in park users. The relationships between the dependent (fear-evoking factors) and independent variables (park users’ socio-demographic and visit-related characteristics) were investigated. Primary data were gleaned by a questionnaire survey, encompassing 90 fear-related factors, 872 park users in eight study sites in Hong Kong. The results identified insufficient park gates as the most fearful factor among 18 IPC. The presence of critical substances such as unusual and undesirable wastes (e.g. syringes, condoms) evoked the most unsafe feelings among 21 PDMI. Of the 26 VC, the presence of critical park users, including drug addicts, drunken persons, suspected undesirable elements or thieves, and persons with suspected mental health problems induced key fear-evoking concerns. The presence of other non-critical park users generally lowered fearful feelings. Gender and self-rated general health status were the most influential socio-demographic factors. Overall, the fear-of-crime factors were subsumed under three groups, respectively affected mainly by PDMI, followed by VC and IPC. The findings provided cross-cultural insights and identified specific but rather eclectic factors to inform improvement of park safety by modifying planning and management inputs.
•Park visiting characteristics should be considered in estimating park access.•Access to parks for elderly residents is unequal.•In newly built areas, the higher the housing price, the higher park ...accessibility.
Many countries are facing an aging population crisis, triggering major concerns over how to best provide services for older people. Parks are an important public service resource for older people living in urban areas. Due to the uneven geographic distribution of parks within a city, elderly people may have unequal access to this resource, based on their socioeconomic status. This park access issue has been under-examined among older populations, who may be more vulnerable and have limited physical mobility. The two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method has been increasingly used to measure access to parks; however, a “catchment area,” defined as the traveling distance to a resource, may be biased against older subjects, due to the lack of behavior-based information within traditional census data. To bridge this methodological gap within the literature, this study sought to estimate park access for the elderly, using the 2SFCA method and new data sources (mobile phone data), in order to determine if older people experience inequitable park access owing to their socioeconomic status. Based on a spatial and multivariate analysis of data collected in Beijing, we find that housing price, the distance to commercial areas and greenspaces are significant influencing factors of the park accessibility; elderly people living in newly built areas, the lower the housing price, the lower accessibility to parks. These findings may assist municipal policy makers in the planning and management of park access for aging citizens.
Emerging studies have indicated the restorative effects of soundscapes on adults’ stress recovery. Little is known, though, about whether those effects could be generalized to children. Therefore, ...the present study tested the restorative effects of different soundscapes on children’s stress in a simulated urban park context. In the experiment, 53 children aged 8–12 first performed an oral arithmetic task to induce mental stress and then were exposed to a 3-min period soundscape. Physiological reactions, electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR), were monitored throughout the experiment. Psychological reactions to the soundscape were measured using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). The results showed that children’s physiological stress recovered significantly after all soundscapes exposure. However, sound types only showed a main effect on EDA recovery but not on HR recovery. Regarding psychological responses, ambient noise showed significantly less restorative effects than other acoustic stimuli on the ratings of pleasure and arousal, but not dominance. Furthermore, a significant difference was found between boys and girls on both physiological and psychological restoration. Those results indicated that urban park soundscapes do facilitate psychophysiological recovery on children to some extent, and the future soundscape design for children should take gender difference into consideration.
•Exposure to peri-urban parks (PUPs) was positively linked to life expectancy.•The life-expectancy benefits of PUP greenery were significant throughout 200–8000 m buffers.•Higher-SES populations had ...higher PUP exposure.•Higher-SES populations gained more life-expectancy benefits from PUPs.
Exposure to greenspaces has well-established benefits for the health and well-being of urban dwellers. Among these greenspaces, peri-urban parks (PUPs), which are human-modified, large-scale, and public-accessible greenspaces located on the urban fringe, have received increasing attention from policymakers and researchers in recent years, as the limited provision of greenspaces in urban areas barely meet the residents’ needs for nature engagement. However, the associations between PUPs and life expectancy and their potential socioeconomic inequalities remain unclear. In this study, we employed a longitudinal, territory-wide death-registration dataset to address such research gaps. The results showed that both the area and greenery of PUP significantly decreased life expectancy loss with standardized coefficients of −0.156 (p = 0.001) and −0.173 (p < 0.001), respectively. The life-expectancy benefits of PUP greenery remain significant throughout 200–8000 m buffer radii. Nevertheless, socioeconomic inequalities were found between PUPs and life expectancy associations. We found that people with higher socioeconomic status (SES) received higher PUP exposure. In addition, contrary to the hypothesis of equigenesis theory, higher-SES populations received greater benefits in life expectancy than lower-SES populations, even after controlling for inequalities in PUP exposure. Our findings uncover a complex relationship between PUPs, life expectancy, and SES, highlighting the need for targeted interventions for people with different SES to ensure equitable health benefits for all.
How to maximize the cooling effect of urban parks in hot extremes has been closely linked to well-beings of citizens. Few studies have quantified urban parks' cooling effect in hot extremes from both ...maximum and accumulative perspectives. Here, we explored 65 urban parks' cooling effect based on spatially continuous cooling curves using multiple satellite images of Greater Xi'an (34°06’ ∼34°34′ N, 108°33’ ∼109°15′ E), one of China's metropolises with frequent hot extremes during July and August in 2019 summer. From maximum perspective, the urban parks cool down as far as 151.4 m, and covering 63.62 ha area, circa five times their own area in hot extremes; from accumulative perspective, the average cooling intensity is 0.78 °C along the whole continuous cooling distance spectrum, accumulated as 153.87 °C•m. And the urban parks show stronger accumulative cooling effect in hot extremes than the relative moderate temperatures. The cooling range could be maximized in large parks with dense trees, also in complex-shaped parks with strong interaction with surrounding environment. Small parks such as neighborhood parks located in the densely populated area are with maximum efficiency, cooling down about nine times their own area, which could serve as highly efficient cooling networks. Enhancing vegetation growth and coupling both blue and green infrastructures are always effective to increase accumulative cooling intensity in hot extremes. Our findings provide nature-based solutions (NBS) to counteracting heat stresses from the intense and frequent hot extremes in the future, also helpful for energy saving in the continuing climate change scenario.
•Urban parks cool down 151.4 m and five times their own area in hot extremes.•Urban parks cool down 0.78 °C along the whole continuous cooling spectrum.•Parks show stronger accumulative cooling effect in hot extremes than moderate days.•Enhancing vegetation growth increases accumulative cooling intensity.
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