مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد اثرات فضاهای سبز شهری بر سلامت ساکنان – اسپرینگر 2018

With the acceleration of the urbanization process in Beijing, the demand for urban land is increasing; as a result, a considerable amount of pressure has been placed on expanding green spaces, which fulfll an ecological function for the public. At the end of 2015, the resident population of Beijing was 21.75 million and the resident urbanization rate was 86.5% (Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics 2016). These fgures show that there is a large demand in the city for urban green spaces and its related ecosystem services (e.g., provisioning services, regulating services, and cultural services). However, industrialization, urbanization, and increases in the resident population exacerbate urban environmental problems. In 2016, the number of days during which Beijing’s air quality failed to meet a safe standard amounted to 167; further, current levels of NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 all surpass national standards, particularly the annual average concentration of PM2.5, which is currently in excess of 109% of the national standard and has reached 73 μg/m3 (Beijing Municipal Environment Protection Bureau 2017). Since the material and cultural needs of Beijing residents can be considered as having been met, the demand that Beijing’s environmental issues be addressed is increasing, as the present environmental conditions are far from satisfactory. Air pollution and environmental disasters have a negative infuence on residents’ well-being (Ferreira et al. 2013); smog is particularly damaging in this regard, as it brings serious health problems and huge social health costs (Cao and Han 2015). Data show that in 2014–2016, the average annual dust-retention rate of Beijing’s garden greening initiative was approximately 9800 tons, of which fne dust accounted for 100 tons and coarse particulate matter approximately 1200 tons; the remaining dust equated to approximately 8500 tons, which is equal to an extra 15 days of second-level air quality (Tie and Lun 2017). In order to continue to address this problem, the Beijing municipal government has increased the construction of green landscaping. The total size of urban green spaces has increased annually, reaching 82,122 ha, which is equal to more than the area of 10,000 football felds, and in the future, more land will be allocated for the construction of urban green spaces. In addition, the per capita park area of Beijing has reached 16.1 m2 , the urban green spaces coverage rate (ratio of total area of green space in cities to total land area in cities) has reached 48.1%, the forest greening rate is 59.3%, and the forest coverage rate is 42.3%. As these rates continue to increase, the living environment further improves. The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry is responsible for the construction of urban green spaces. The Beijing Municipal Government pays close attention to the construction of green spaces, and eforts to expand the green space in Beijing have become the focus of their work. In 2016, the total amount of funds dedicated to landscape and forestry has reached 16 billion yuan1 (Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry 2017). Urban green spaces include city and country parks, botanical gardens, zoos, cemeteries, small gardens, and street and square green spaces. In this study, we mainly considered city and country parks and community or square green spaces.