Remote sensing based analysis of linkages between urban green space dynamics and social-economic factors : a case study in Malmö, Sweden

Abstract: The global rapid growing urban inhabitants and urbanization promotes a conflict with natural resources conservation, sustainable urban structure establishment, and urban expansion. Urban green space (UGS) plays an essential role in sustainable communities, human health promotion, and economic development, however, is gradually replaced by the basic infrastructures in the context of densification strategy for urban expansion. UGS that has multiple functions might be unequally distributed as social and economic discrepancy varies from different communities in cities. This thesis aims to evaluate the historical variation and distribution of large-scale UGS from 1960 to 2016 with the growth of population and Commercial/ Industrial/ Residential area (CIR area) in Malmö municipality, Sweden. It further aims to analyse the area of the UGS in each district with considering the social-economic factors in order to identify, which zone in the city lacks of UGS and if the UGS are evenly distributed. Part of this thesis is also to create a regression model with the variables for predicting future the UGS and generating suggestion adapted to the densified urban structure and future planning. The study found a downward trend of the UGS during the 50 years associated with the variation of policies and urban plan, which, however, did not correlate significantly with the population growth and CIR area development. The UGS was found to be unevenly distributed in the west and east, potentially related to the population density, CIR area, and income level. The models for predicting future UGS, however, are not accurate due to the limitation of explanatory power of the chosen variables (such as walking distance to park, waterbodies and public transport infrastructure).