Urbana grönområden : En analys av tillgängligheten till urbana grönområden i Umeå

Urban green areas: An analysis of accessibility of urban green areas in Umeå Tom Erik Stenlund, Department of geography and economic history, Umeå University, Sweden Abstract: This study aims to analyze and describe how accessible the urban green areas are in Umeå. The study examines the accessibility in two different ways, when it comes to the urban fringe forest it’s valued depending on how much of it exists inside the study area. The parks and green areas and recreational areas is valued depending on how far away habitants live from one of the parks/green areas and recreational areas.Using a quantitative approach, the study aims to describe the accessibility through spatial patterns which is largely conducted in ArcGIS. The study concludes the growth of today and with the goals of the municipality 10.6 percentage of the urban fringe forest/natural areas will have disappeared by 2028. Alongside with the growth of population in the urban area of Umeå it means that 138 m2 of the urban fringe forest/natural areas will be lost per person, or 34 percentage of the area per person since 2008. The second analysis is a network analysis of the service area of each park/green area or recreational area, and for the park/green area is based on walking speed and the recreational areas is based on cycling speed. The study shows that within 5 minutes of parks/green areas 28.3 percentage of the total population of Umeå lives. Within 10 minutes of the park/green areas 54.7 percentage of the total population. 5 minutes within the recreation areas 37.1 percentage of the population of Umeå lives and 81.7 percentage of Umeå’s population lives within 10 minutes of a recreational area.Further the study discusses the problems that a densification strategy could have on urban green areas, and how the accessibility might change with it. Keywords: Accessibility, Urban green, ArcGIS, Network analysis, Densificatio