Modeling Elderly Accessibility to Urban Green Space in High Density Cities: A Case Study of Hong Kong

AbstractHong Kong is an ageing society. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 22% of its residents will be 65 years old or above by the year 2030. Physical activities provide an important way for older people to stay healthy. Green space is recognized as an important environmental setting for physical activity. Therefore, improving elderly accessibility to green space is useful in promoting more physical activity among them. The aim of this study is to modeling and assessing the elderly accessibility to urban green spaces in Hong Kong, by (1) modeling urban green spaces available for elderly people using the landscape fragmentation index (LFI) of green space patches, and (2) accessibility analysis in terms of both distance and time for elderly people to get urban green space patches. As a result, regions with LFI from high to low and accessibility from good to poor are Kowloon, Hong Kong Island, and New Territories. Kowloon has the highest LFI and accessibility. However, it is limited by small size green space patches which may not be in good quality and attractive for elder people. New Territories, due to its large number of available lands, has the largest proportion of big size green space patches. However, they are limited by their poor accessibility. Based on these evidences, we would suggest the prior improvement (1) in Kowloon is to have more green spaces with larger sizes, (2) in New Territories is to increase the green space accessibility either by improving the walking routes or building more small to median size green space patches that can well cover the whole region