Quantitative and Qualitative Investigation of Urban Green Space Using QuickBird Satellite Imagery (Case study: District 1 of Shahrekord Municipality)

Increasing urban population growth, industrialization and climate change have led to environmental pollution and therefore attracted attention of city managers and planners to green space, due to its key role in reducing pollution and climate effects. In this study, using remote sensing, geographic information system and field works, the quantity and quality of urban green space in a district one of Shahrekord municipality has been investigated. QuickBird satellite images with high spatial resolution were used to calculate per capita green space and the distribution of green spaces in the concerned municipal district of Shahrekord city. To discriminate different land uses in the study area, image classification was performed using NDVI index and maximum likelihood algorithm. To assess the accuracy of the classification results, the ground truth map was prepared using field works and recording of ground points by GPS. Based on the error matrix, the overall accuracy of 91% and kappa coefficient of 0.85 were obtained. The total per capita green space (public and non-public green spaces) and per capita park for each person was 13.87 and 12.18 square meters respectively. Moreover, the results showed that the distribution of green spaces does not follow a specific pattern, but distributed equally and fairly throughout the region. Finally, with the recognition of empty spaces without any residential applications, suitable places for green spaces establishment and compensating for the lack of per capita park were proposed.