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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Cities
Sec. Urban Greening
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frsc.2024.1470693

Effective green cover and equipment-infrastructure attributes of public green spaces in a Mexican metropolitan area

Provisionally accepted
Carlos-Renato Ramos-Palacios Carlos-Renato Ramos-Palacios 1Miriam Edith Banda-Escalante Miriam Edith Banda-Escalante 2Cecilia Fernanda Barba-Romo Cecilia Fernanda Barba-Romo 1Alicia Anahí Cisneros-Vidales Alicia Anahí Cisneros-Vidales 3*Jorge Guillermo Rodríguez-Herrera Jorge Guillermo Rodríguez-Herrera 4
  • 1 Faculty of Habitat, Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
  • 2 Department of Work Coordination, HG Housing Developments, San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
  • 3 Multidisciplinary Postgraduate Program for Environmental Sciences (PMPCA), Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (UASLP), San Luis Potosí, Mexico
  • 4 Postgraduate College, Campus San Luis, Salinas de Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In the face of excessive urban growth, urban green spaces face the challenge of providing ecosystem and environmental benefits efficiently. While Public Green Spaces (PGS) stand out for their different environmental and social benefits, their efficiency depends on the vegetated cover, which can be evaluated in relation to the area, type of polygon and degree of equipment. In this work, the Effective Green Cover (EGC) assessed from a geographic information system, and the level of Equipment-Infrastructure, were evaluated in different green spaces in the metropolitan area of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The PGS categories included Park with Hydrological Potential, Urban Park, Linear Park, Neighborhood Park, Local Garden, Residual Green Space and Sports Area. In our results, the Urban Park and the Park with Hydrological Potential indicated 69.5 and 79.5% of EGC, respectively, and a value of 0.3 of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Specifically, only in Urban Park the Land Surface Temperature (LST) decreased with the increase in NDVI. The total green coverage of PGS was 6.7 m2 and the EGC was 5.8 m2, which is largely due to the large-sized parks. Furthermore, the provision of parks is insufficient compared to other metropolitan areas on a national and international scale. In the spaces with the highest score of equipment, the outstanding elements were urban furniture, children’s playgrounds and exercise areas, which varied according to the type of green space indicating a differentiated social use. This work suggests that EGC can be a parameter to assess the green proportion of PGS in cities. Integrating this variable in PGS planning and design can enhance ecosystem services provision in metropolitan areas.

    Keywords: Public green spaces (PGS)1, Effective Green Cover (EGC)2, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)3, Urban park4, Equipment-Infrastructure attributes5, Land Surface Temperature (LST)6

    Received: 25 Jul 2024; Accepted: 11 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ramos-Palacios, Banda-Escalante, Barba-Romo, Cisneros-Vidales and Rodríguez-Herrera. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Alicia Anahí Cisneros-Vidales, Multidisciplinary Postgraduate Program for Environmental Sciences (PMPCA), Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (UASLP), San Luis Potosí, Mexico

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.