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Indicators for green spaces in contrasting urban settings

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DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.10.027

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 Ecological Indicators 62 (2016) 212–219

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Indicators for green spaces in contrasting urban settings

Francisco de la Barrera a,∗ , Sonia Reyes-Paecke b , Ellen Banzhaf c
a
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Instituto de Geografía and Centro del Desarrollo Urbano Sustentable, Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Chile
b
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Departamento de Ecosistemas y Medio Ambiente and Centro del Desarrollo Urbano Sustentable, Vicuña
Mackenna 4860, Macul, Chile
c
UFZ – Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department Urban and Environmental Sociology, Working Group Geomatics, Permoserstr. 15, 04318
Leipzig, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Urban green spaces (GS) are essential for the well-being of the population. Several works have shown
Received 14 April 2015 a positive correlation between the amount of GS and the household incomes in both developed and
Received in revised form 7 October 2015 developing countries. Thus, the higher the incomes, the larger the total area covered by GS, the better the
Accepted 11 October 2015
quality of these spaces, the higher the amount of private GS. Public policies seek to correct this inequality,
Available online 2 December 2015
but existing indicators, especially the amount of GS per inhabitant, do not provide enough information
for effective decision-making. Our aim was to provide tools to evaluate and plan better the location and
Keywords:
quality of GS in complex urban areas. For this we applied a set of indicators for GS at two spatial scales
Quality of green spaces
Accessibility to green spaces
city-level and local-level, in order to disclose existing inequalities. The indicators considered (i) the total
Vegetation cover area of GS in relation to population and urban context, (ii) the quality of GS based on its size, shape
Social equity and vegetation cover, and (iii) the spatial distribution and accessibility of GS. The proposed indicators
Urban planning were tested in three municipalities, belonging to the Metropolitan Area of Santiago (Chile), with different
Environmental inequalities household incomes. The indicators showed large differences in terms of quantity of GS per inhabitant,
vegetation cover and accessibility. The GS proved to be an effective strategy to reduce areas that lack
vegetation cover. The sustainability assessments must consider how the diversity of structural attributes
of GS has an impact on the well-being of urban inhabitants.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction as private gardens, golf courses and institutional gardens were

Green spaces (GS) are key elements for urban quality of life. They
contribute to human well-being by providing ecosystem services
such as climate regulation, capture of pollutants or flood regula-
tion; they also promote the encounter of neighbors and community
integration, and deliver a favorable place for health, relaxation
and nature contemplation (Chiesura, 2004; Lee and Maheswaran,
2011; Dobbs et al., 2014; Larondelle et al., 2014; Carrus et al., 2015;
Marselle et al., 2015).
Because of their importance delivering ecosystem services
within densely populated cities (Niemelä, 2014; Yao et al., 2014)
and for the purpose of this study we considered GS as public goods
which allow free access to all citizens and represent pockets of
nature for all residents (e.g. urban parks, squares, median strip,
roadsides, sidewalks, etc). Given this, GS of restricted access such
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +56 2 23547404.
E-mail addresses: fdelabarrera@uc.cl (F. de la Barrera), sreyespa@uc.cl
(S. Reyes-Paecke), ellen.banzhaf@ufz.de (E. Banzhaf).
excluded; despite their provision of ecosystem services and amend-
ment to the quality of well-being (Colding and Folke, 2009; Cilliers
et al., 2013; Balooni et al., 2014; Zhang and Jim, 2014).
The most widely used indicator to assess green spaces is their
total area in respect to the total population (m2 /inhabitant) (Taylor
et al., 2011; Van Herzele and Wiedemann, 2003; Caspersen et al.,
2006; Kabisch and Haase, 2013; ISO, 2014). However, this indicator
– area of GS per inhabitant – does not inform on how this is dis-
tributed throughout the city or administrative unit and also doesn’t
inform on ecosystem services provided (Yao et al., 2014). It does
not provide enough information about the actual distribution of GS
within the city, neither about the accessibility of these spaces for
different population groups, since it assumes a fair distribution for
all inhabitants (Reyes-Paecke and Figueroa, 2010; Weiland et al.,
2011; Zhou and Kim, 2013; La Rosa, 2014).
The effective assessment of GS and its ecosystem service pro-
vision depends on quantity, quality and accessibility of GS (Chen
et al., 2009; Wright Wendel et al., 2012; Zhou and Kim, 2013; Yao
et al., 2014). Only few studies have evaluated these aspects in an
integrated manner.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.10.027
1470-160X/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 F. de la Barrera et al. / Ecological Indicators 62 (2016) 212–219
Quantitatively, size and shape of GS matters: the larger the
size, the greater the magnitude and diversity of ecosystem ser-
vices provided. For cultural services, larger green spaces allow
various activities and thereby facilitate the simultaneous pres-
ence of different users (e.g. children, youth and adults), favoring
social interactions (Sugiyama and Ward Thompson, 2008; Maas
et al., 2009; Krellenberg et al., 2014). The GS also foster biodi-
versity (Uno et al., 2010; Young, 2010; Gong et al., 2013), have
larger portions cover by trees and are more effective in provid-
ing regulating services, such as climate regulation and flood control
(Chiesura, 2004; Jenerette et al., 2007; Cavan et al., 2014; Larondelle
et al., 2014; Niemelä, 2014). The concept of green infrastructure has
been widely used to refer to include GS in a more extensive list of
nature features which contribute to the urban performance and
resilience at various scales (e.g. Tzoulas et al., 2007; Charlesworth,
2010; Lafortezza et al., 2013; Fletcher et al., 2014).
The quality and accessibility of GS are key attributes to strengthen
the effectiveness of ecosystem services provided to citizens. The
quality of GS is a function of size, shape and the elements inside
the GS (Taylor et al., 2011; Dobbs et al., 2014; Tian et al., 2014).
One key element of green spaces is vegetation, being one of the
main provider of ecosystem services; hence, vegetation cover can
be used as a measure of the quality of GS (Cilliers et al., 2013; Zhou
and Kim, 2013). Accessibility to GS relates to the spatial distribu-
tion of GS throughout the urban area, which is measured through
a variety of GIS-based methodologies combined with social sur-
veys (Schipperijn et al., 2010; Krellenberg et al., 2014). In addition,
Yao et al. (2014) proposed three indicators to measure quality and
accessibility of GS: (i) the Effective Green Equivalent (EGE) referring
to the GS area that effectively has a benefit for each inhabitant; (ii)
the Average Effective Green Equivalent (AEGE), which is the aver-
age of EGE for all inhabitants; and (iii) the Inequality Coefficient
(IC) which is based on the Gini coefficient of income inequality,
exchanging income with the EGE of residents (Yao et al., 2014).
Besides the multi-dimensional attributes for better assessing GS,
it is necessary to determine the spatial scale in which the indicators
are relevant given that urban planners require effective indicators
for municipal and local scales. Indicators at municipal scale can be
used for temporal comparisons and to compare cities. Indicators at
local level are useful to recognize intra-urban inequalities that are
not evident by applying municipal-level indicators. Local indicators
can aid detecting areas requiring governmental actions given their
lack of GS.
This study aims at understanding how to evaluate GS better
for maintaining or enhancing human well-being from a multi-
dimensional framework. The main objective is to develop a set of
indicators for GS that allows recognizing inequalities in different
urban contexts.
The quantity refers to the total area of GS in relation to pop-
ulation and urban context. The quality is evaluated through GS’
morphologies and vegetation cover. Especially, the spatial distri-
bution tested the accessibility of residents and existing territorial
inequalities. All indicators were applied in three contrasting urban
municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Santiago (MAS) Chile, to
test their sensitivity to existing differences inside the same political
and economic system.
Like other Latin American cities, Santiago has a strong socio-
spatial segregation, so that groups of different income levels live
separately to each other (Kabisch et al., 2012; Romero et al., 2012).
Previous research showed that low-income municipalities in San-
tiago tend to have less GS with smaller average sizes and dramatic
variations in the proportion of GS between municipalities at city
level (Escobedo et al., 2006; Reyes-Paecke and Figueroa, 2010;
Romero et al., 2012; Banzhaf et al., 2013). However, such eval-
uations are very scarce in Latin-American cities did not follow
standards about what is a GS and did not assess quality and
213
spatial distribution of GS (Celemín and Velazquez, 2012; UN-
HABITAT, 2012).
2. Methodology
2.1. Dataset preparation
2.1.1. Mapping green spaces
To map GS, we used the geo-database provided by Reyes-Paecke
and Figueroa (2010) containing all GS for the MAS. That study dis-
tinguished 11,606 GS covering 3825 ha located in 34 municipalities,
obtained from a mosaic of aerial photography from June 2006. We
add the vegetation cover to this database derived from satellite
imagery and select only GS of public use, i.e. urban parks, squares
and median strips (so-called bandejones), sidewalks, etc.
2.1.2. Scale-dependent mapping of urban land use and its
structure
All features of the urban land-use structure were derived
from QuickBird satellite imageries analyses. This sensor system
comprises four spectral bands in the visual and near-infrared
spectra (ground resolution of 2.4 m) and one panchromatic band
(0.6 m ground resolution). Our acquired data set is from 19-
December-2006 and 06-January-2007. Preprocessing comprises
geographical and radiometric corrections, followed by mosaicking
and pan-sharpening the imageries to capture the structural fea-
tures precisely. We processed the data developing object-based
image analysis (OBIA) to map land uses within neighborhoods in
local districts (Banzhaf and Höfer, 2008: 130).
The urban land-use structure was thus explained by various
compositions of vegetation cover, bare soils and imperviousness
detecting the homogeneity and heterogeneity between neighbor-
hoods. In an earlier study, similar analyses were performed just at
municipal level by Banzhaf et al. (2013) for different time scales. At
that level, no differentiation was undertaken for vegetation cover.
2.1.3. Getting the demographic data
Based on census data we quantified three products for a basic
understanding of the socio-spatial differences between selected
municipalities: (1) absolute number of population for each block
in 2002; (2) absolute number of population in 2006 based on offi-
cial projection and (3) population density for the residential areas
accordingly (INE, 2014). No projection of population could be gath-
ered for each block, because this is executed at municipal level (INE,
2014). More recent census data by block level do not exist in Chile.
These demographic indicators were then combined to describe
the urban land-use structure of the case study areas.
2.2. Case study
The MAS is the capital of Chile, and the largest urban agglom-
eration of the country with a current population of 6.5 million
inhabitants (INE, 2014). It covers 2274 km2 of which approximately
616 km2 are built-up areas concluding in a population density of
9540 inhabitants per km2 (Banzhaf et al., 2013).
The population of the MAS has a high degree of spatial disparity
segregated by extremely varying income levels. The spatial dis-
tribution of GS is also highly correlated with the income level of
residents: the higher the income, the higher the land cover of GS
per inhabitant (Escobedo et al., 2006; Reyes-Paecke and Figueroa,
2010; Ministerio del Interior, 2009). Neighborhoods constructed
by social housing programs only possess few GS (Vasquez, 2008;
Romero et al., 2012).
The Chilean institutional structure divides the national territory
into regions and municipalities, defining three levels of admin-
istration: national, regional and local. Hence, the MAS is not one
214 F. de la Barrera et al. / Ecological Indicators 62 (2016) 212–219

Fig. 1. Location of the Metropolitan Area of Santiago (MAS) in Chile, gray feature (i.e. built-up area) of the MAS, and the three selected municipalities Cerro Navia (low
incomes), La Florida (middle incomes), and Vitacura (high incomes).

administrative unit, but a conglomerate of 34 local municipalities. Similarly, the land cover per GS of the built-up municipal territory
As study area, three municipalities were selected, according to their is obtained by dividing the sum of GS areas by the built-up area of
characteristics by high, medium and low incomes, respectively. As each municipality.
representative of low incomes we chose Cerro Navia in the north- Finally, the total area of GS is respectively compared to the sum
west, for medium incomes La Florida was selected in the south-east, of land cover per impervious cover, per bare soils and per vegeta-
and as a good example for municipalities with high incomes we tion cover (according to FAO land cover classification system; FAO,
picked Vitacura in the north-east (Fig. 1). 2005), for a better understanding of the urban structure and the
location of the GS.
2.3. Proposed indicators
2.3.2. Indicators associated to the quality of GS
The set of indicators elaborated to analyze GS consider the three We evaluate the quality of GS using physical attributes. The
main dimensions quantity, quality and spatial distribution (Table 1) mean size per municipality is based on the individual size of each
and are explained in the subsequent sections. GS as well as their standard deviation. The shape index compares
perimeter to area in order to inform how regular each GS is, being
2.3.1. Indicators associated to the quantity of GS equal to 1 if the GS has a square shape and increases beyond 1 if the
The sum of GS areas is compared to the total population per shape of the GS becomes irregular (Fragstat 4.2 by McGarigal et al.
municipality to get the indicator of GS per inhabitant (in m2 ). (2012)).
The vegetation cover per GS (mean ± SD) was calculated by
extracting the land use information for all GS shapes and then the
Table 1
Description of the proposed indicators. land-use statistics was processed for all patches. In addition, the
vegetation cover on GS per inhabitant was calculated (m2 /inh.) to
Indicators Name Scale
deduce how much ecosystem services could be produced by each
Quantity of GS GS per inhabitant Municipal GS, and therefore enjoyed by each inhabitant. This indicator puts
GS per built-up area Municipal
the share of GS in context to the population density.
GS per impervious cover Municipal
GS per bare soils Municipal
GS per vegetation cover Municipal
2.3.3. Indicators associated to the spatial distribution of and the
Quality of GS Mean size of GS (±SD) Municipal accessibility to GS
Shape index of GS (±SD)* Municipal How the GS are distributed in the municipal territory is impor-
Vegetation cover on GS Municipal
tant to complement the indicator of the total area of GS. In theory,
(mean ± SD)
Vegetation cover on GS per Municipal the most extreme distributions are (i) the restriction of all GS to just
inhabitant (mean ± SD) one neighborhood or (ii) the equal distribution of GS in all neigh-
Spatial distribution and Aggregation index of GS* Municipal
borhoods. The indicator of the total area would be exactly the same
accessibility to GS Share of blocks served by Local for both examples, but the spatial allocation would be missed. A
GS > 0.5 ha well-designed indicator has to enable the reflection on the spa-
Share of population served Local tial distribution. Therefore, we first calculate the aggregation index
by GS > 0.5 ha
(AI) to get a reference of how clustered GS in each municipality are.
Source: Elaborated by the authors. * McGarigal et al. (2012). This index pictures the range from fragmentation to aggregation.
 F. de la Barrera et al. / Ecological Indicators 62 (2016) 212–219 215

Table 2
Statistics of demographic development and land use in the studied municipalities. Categories of land uses were calculated within the built-up areas of each municipality.

Statistics Low income municipality Medium income High income

Cerro Navia municipality La Florida municipality Vitacura

Demographic information
Population in 2002 [abs. no. inh.] 143,045 350,255 79,053
Population in 2006 [abs. no. inh.] 143,035 395,720 81,588
Population density in 2006 per 166.0 108.9 39.6
built-up area of each
municipality [inh./ha]
Urban land uses within the urbanized space of a municipality
Impervious areas within the 54.4 45.0 35.6
urbanized space of a
municipality [%]
Bare soils [%] 30.2 28.4 20.3
Vegetation cover [%] 15.3 25.5 40.6
Other land cover [%] 0.2 1.0 3.5

The AI is close to 100 when all the evaluated fragments are adjacent
to each other and 0 if all of the fragments are isolated (McGarigal
et al., 2012).
To measure accessibility we combine the most refined demo-
graphic data available (population per block in 2002) with the
location of GS (database of 2006). After geo-processing, we obtain
the blocks with any GS in a distance less than 100 m, and those with
GS larger than 0.5 ha in a distance less than 300 m. The population
supplied by GS is derived from the population living in each block.
3. Results
At the municipal scale, Table 2 describes the demographic
information on the three municipalities together with their urban
structure. It becomes obvious that their numbers of inhabitants
differ in number, and more importantly, their population densi-
ties varied significantly. Vitacura has the highest family income
and lowest urban density, the least impervious areas and bare soil
and the highest vegetation cover. The largest municipality with
rather mixed social strata is La Florida. Here, more than a quar-
ter of its urban territory is covered by vegetation, and almost half
of the urbanized area is built-up by residential houses, and public
infrastructure. Cerro Navia has low family income and the highest
population density, and more than 50% impervious areas and a low
share of vegetation cover.
The correlation of GS per inhabitant (m2 /inh.) and incomes indi-
cates environmental justice. Hence, we found a correlation between
low family income and low GS per capita (Table 3). The pattern
of the most affluent municipality had a higher proportion of their
inhabitants supplied by different types of GS, and a high share of
population supplied by GS (Table 3). On average, the GS possess
larger vegetation cover than the other two municipalities; those
two being rather similar despite their different incomes (Table 3,
Fig. 2).
The poorest municipality (Cerro Navia) has a larger fraction of its
territory covered by GS compared to the other two municipalities,
and its GS contributes more to the total vegetation cover in the
municipal territory than in the other two municipalities of higher
household incomes (Table 3). Here, the GS are located closer to
each other. In La Florida only 34% of GS are larger than 0.5 ha, a
low proportion compared to the poorest and richest municipalities
with 46 and 47% respectively. On average, the GS in Cerro Navia
are larger compared to Vitacura and La Florida, and tend to have
more square shapes, showing a smaller shape index. In Vitacura, the
shape index reaches the highest value, explaining the large number
of linear vegetated structures.
3.1. Quantity of GS
In Cerro Navia, GS add up to 37 ha representing 4.3% inside the
built-up area, which signifies a higher share compared to the other
two municipalities. In La Florida, GS cover an area of 111 ha (3.1%),
and in Vitacura the accumulative cover is 63 ha, representing 3.0%
inside the built environment.
GS per capita show low values of only 3 m2 /inh. in Cerro Navia
and in La Florida respectively, and 8 m2 /inh. in Vitacura. The World

Table 3
Set of indicators for GS evaluated in three contrasting urban settings.

Indicators Low income municipality Medium income High income

Cerro Navia municipality La Florida municipality Vitacura

Quantity of GS
GS per inhabitant (2006) [m2 /inh.] 2.59 2.81 7.68
GS per built-up area [%] 4.3 3.1 3.0
GS per impervious cover [%] 7.9 6.8 8.5
GS per bare soils [%] 14.3 10.8 15.0
GS per vegetation cover [%] 28.1 12.0 7.5
Quality of GS
Mean size of GS [m2 ] (SD in brackets) 2454 (4075) 1507 (2274) 2053 (3471)
Shape index of GS [+/- SD] (in brackets ±SD)a 1.446 (0.393) 1.528 (0.686) 1.929 (1.126)
Mean vegetation cover per GS [%] (in brackets + - SD) 39.6 (0.184) 41.2 (0.214) 52.7 (0.270)
Vegetation cover on GS per inhabitant [m2 /inh.] 1.29 1.30 4.56
Spatial distribution and accessibility to GS
Aggregation index of GS 97.60 96.50 96.20
Share of population supplied by GS (buffer = 100 m; all GS) [%] 70.0 84.1 81.6
Share of GS > 0.5 ha [%] 46.4 34.0 47.3
Share of population supplied by GS > 0.5 ha (buffer = 300 m) [%] 41.2 49.2 67.3

SD, standard deviation.

a
Shape index is an a-dimensional indicator, the value is 1 when the patch is square and increases without limit as patch shape becomes more irregular.
216 F. de la Barrera et al. / Ecological Indicators 62 (2016) 212–219

Fig. 2. Overview over the amount and distribution of vegetation cover in the three selected municipalities and the location of green spaces.

Health Organization defines the standard of 9–11 m2 /inh. of GS to
secure the quality of life in cities (Kuchelmeister, 1998; Thaiutsa
et al., 2008; UNEP, 2010:157; Darkwah and Cobbinah, 2014). Only
Vitacura approaches this standard, leaving Cerro Navia and La
Florida far below this threshold.
The relationship of bare soils and GS is equivalently covered in
Cerro Navia and Vitacura with 14 and 15% respectively (Table 3),
although in Cerro Navia bare soils represent 30% of the built-up
area, and in Vitacura they reach only 20% (Table 2). So differences
in availability of GS are not necessarily a lack of GS or excessive
bare soils. Share of GS per vegetation cover reports that in munici-
palities with the least resources, GS contribute in a greater way to
the municipal vegetation cover, while in wealthier municipalities
the vegetation cover is so high that GS are immersed in a vegetated
matrix.
3.2. Quality of GS
In contrary to the assumption that municipalities with lower
incomes have smaller GS, Cerro Navia has an average size of 0.24 ha,
superior even to the average size Vitacura (0.20 ha) has and well
above the average size of La Florida (0.15 ha). Poor Cerro Navia
with the highest average GS cover has a shape index closer to a
square shape for residential stay, while the shape index is higher
in Vitacura, GS have more elongated or complex shapes, typical for
such linear GS as sidewalks or median strips to pass by.
Another novelty of this research is the measurement of the vege-
tation cover on GS, not measured before, as an important attribute
to GS. In arid and semiarid environments the proportion of bare
soil inside the GS depends on irrigation. In addition, GS could have a
high proportion of impervious surfaces. Both attributes are relevant
to understand the functionality and quality of GS.
Regarding the percentage of the total vegetation cover on GS,
we can draw the following statements: in Cerro Navia GS cover
only 4.3% of the municipal area (37.1 ha), but provide 14% of the
total vegetation cover in this municipality, i.e. 18.5 ha. For local
residents of low incomes who are the majority in Cerro Navia and
who live in densely populated environments, it obviously becomes
vital to have and even increase the vegetation cover on GS as a posi-
tive contribution to environmental quality. In contrast, in La Florida
the GS represent 3.1% of the municipal area (111.2 ha) and provide
only 5.5% of the respective vegetation cover (i.e. 51.4 ha), which is
a much lower proportion than in Cerro Navia. In Vitacura, the situ-
ation is similar to La Florida, but the contribution of GS is still less
important as GS hold 4% of the municipal area and provide only
4.5% of the total vegetation cover (Table 3, Fig. 3). Significantly, GS
have a higher contribution to the entire vegetation cover in Cerro
Navia than in more affluent municipalities. The share of vegetation
cover on GS adds up to 50%, higher than in La Florida with 46%, but
lower than in Vitacura (59%).
Vitacura and La Florida have areas with a high vegetation cover
and a low number of GS, suggesting that vegetation is mainly

Fig. 3. Left: Differences of vegetation cover in total and on GS of each municipality (own figure). Right: Vegetation cover on GS per inhabitant (own figure). Cerro Navia, La
Florida and Vitacura represent the low, the medium and the high income municipality, respectively.
 F. de la Barrera et al. / Ecological Indicators 62 (2016) 212–219
concentrated in GS of restricted access (e.g. gardens and backyards).
This is consistent with their urban structure as private lots are larger
and the proportion of impervious and bare soils is lower. A previous
study shows that in the MAS the vegetation cover in home gardens
is 3.7 times higher than on GS (Reyes-Paecke and Meza, 2011).
Vegetation cover contained on GS shows a fairly similar pat-
tern in the three municipalities with about 48–60% respectively
(Table 3). Regarding its ratio per inhabitant, GS in Vitacura have a
higher vegetation cover per inhabitant (4.6 m2 /inh.) than in Cerro
Navia and La Florida, showing the same proportion (1.3 m2 /inh.)
(Table 3, Fig. 3) and thus making a tremendous difference for the
environmental quality of residents.
As part of the urban structure the built environment is a main
determinant for the optional or restricted expansion of vegetation
cover. Beyond, it is associated with housing and population density
(Table 2). So the indicators which help to compare any quantifi-
able variable of GS (e.g. number of entities, area covered) with the
number of inhabitants will show extremely low figures as a conse-
quence of the huge differences in urban structure and population
density. Examples given are the differences on the figures of GS per
inhabitant, vegetation cover on GS per inhabitant, share of popu-
lation supplied by GS comparing a highly dense populated urban
area with a less densely populated one.
3.3. Spatial distribution and accessibility to GS
All GS are highly aggregated. The share of population supplied
by all GS in a buffer of 100 m from the boundary of each GS ranges
from 70–84%. Considering only the larger areas (>0.5 ha) and an
area of influence within 300 m from the edge of each GS, however,
shows the fraction of population supplied with gives a wide range
from 70 to 40% in Cerro Navia, 84–49% in Florida and 82–67% in
Vitacura.
Less than half of the GS exceed 0.5 ha in all municipalities,
reaching the lowest value in La Florida, middle income and higher
population growth.
The higher vegetation cover on GS in the municipality of high-
est incomes is not enough to explain the differences on vegetation
cover in the municipal territory as we mentioned above. Indeed,
Cerro Navia with the highest share of low income households has
proportionally more GS that the other municipalities.
4. Discussion
The developed indicators for GS tackled the differentiations in
the quality and quantity of urban vegetation and the reflection of
this differentiation on the socio-spatial distribution of residents
in the selected municipalities. Only few case studies undertake
research on different land cover on green spaces in general, so
there are still few sources in literature that allow to compare our
results and to find some common trends. It needs to be stated
that shortages in total vegetation cover of a municipality (pub-
lic and private) cannot be compensated by vegetation cover on
GS because the urban structure limits any available space to be
converted into new GS. Growing cities face a constant pressure
on GS, due to the need to build housing and infrastructure. The
combination of population and economic growth (which facilitates
real-estate investment) and high density of urbanization restricts
the presence of environmental amenities (Livert and Gainza, 2014)
which include vegetation, and even threatens existing GS.
The proportion of vegetation cover on GS with respect to total
vegetation cover is an important indicator in cities with a high
socio-spatial differentiation. The proportion of vegetation cover
on GS is higher in dense urban areas, which usually are also the
poorest ones. Conversely, there is a lower proportion of vegetation
217
on GS in zones with large private gardens. The proposed indicator
shows that despite the scarcity of GS of public access in the MAS, the
GS are the main providers of vegetation cover and their associated
benefits.
The positive correlation between the household incomes and
the abundance of vegetation has been demonstrated in other cities,
e.g. city of Tampa (Florida, USA; Landry and Chakraborty, 2009) and
Montreal (Canada; Pham et al., 2012). In the MAS, poorer and richer
municipalities invest a similar share (4.1–4.7%) of their budget to
tree management on GS (Escobedo et al., 2006) achieving different
results, not only because their municipal budgets are quite differ-
ent. This study shows how a high income municipality keeps an
abundant vegetation cover in private gardens and green spaces
of public use that would not survive unattended in a semi-arid
environment like in the MAS where urban vegetation is domi-
nated by exotic species requiring irrigation and maintenance. In
cities located in arid and semiarid regions the correlation between
income level and vegetation cover is rather evident (Jenerette et al.,
2007; Halper et al., 2012). In these municipalities the low-income
population faces a double constraint in regards to the maintenance
of vegetation. Those contrasts are land and water scarcity. The low-
est income groups live in smaller properties which again reduce
the area that could be planted, and cannot devote a lot of water to
irrigate the plants, due to the cost of drinking water. It also empha-
sizes the demand of GS for poorer municipalities to balance out the
deficiency of vegetation cover on GS of restricted access. However,
using photointerpretation techniques, a previous study qualita-
tively proved that even smaller lots have vegetation, although tree
and shrub cover is slightly higher than on average lawn (Reyes-
Paecke and Meza, 2011). The mentioned evidences also suggested
that the higher the household incomes, the richer the structural
diversity (e.g. tree, shrub and herbs), which is an issue that still
needs to be studied more deeply.
This contribution shows that traditional indicators of green
spaces calculated for a large territory and standardized by the pop-
ulation have a positive bias to areas of lower density, where they
tend to state better results as a consequence of having less pop-
ulation per GS. Thus, inequalities in the distribution of GS are not
only explained by the household incomes, but also by the urban
structure and especially the size of residential lots. The proposed
indicators will be useful for municipalities and urban planners,
allowing compare different neighborhoods to steer and evaluate
public investment toward the more deprived sectors. These pub-
lic investments should not only focus on the provision of new GS
but also on long-term maintenance in order to guarantee such pro-
vision and use of GS as ecosystem services. They should also be
applied in other cities of developing countries with similar charac-
teristics (Wright Wendel et al., 2012).
5. Conclusions
The study presented a spatially explicit methodology not only
to portray the complex role of GS for different municipalities. This
mixed approach also deepens our understanding how GS should be
developed to serve as contribution to a good quality of life in differ-
ent urban settings. To do so, the set of indicators should consider
standardized indicators of its spatial context. Such a set must also
assess quality and size of GS. Consequently, this combination of
indicators avoids a bias when evaluating the urban structure. The
accessibility is a piece of valuable information beyond the urban
structure. In addition, the quality of GS (size, shape and vegetation
cover) is not necessarily correlated to population density and dis-
tribution or the affluence of local residents. Therefore the results
also support a more sustainable urban planning which implies
positive commitment by differentiating areas and providing a
218 F. de la Barrera et al. / Ecological Indicators 62 (2016) 212–219
well-distributed accessibility to GS. We demand future research
to focus on standards: standards of accessibility for different types
of GS and standards of “sustainable” quality of GS considering the
natural environment in which cities are embedded in.
Acknowledgments
This study was framed during the project Evaluating Environ-
mental and Life Quality to analyse Urban Vulnerability in Santiago
de Chile (2011–2013). Therefore we want to thank the German
BMBF-IB (FKZ 01DN12033), CONICYT/BMBF (229/2010) and CONI-
CYT/FONDAP (15110020) for their support.
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