Evaluating and Optimizing Urban Green Spaces for Compact Urban Areas: Cukurova District in Adana, Turkey

In recent decades, the ever-decreasing number of green spaces have become insufficient to meet public demands in terms of accessibility, spatial distribution and the size of urban green areas. This is mainly due to increasing attention on the issue of accessibility to urban green spaces. This paper aims to quantify accessibility according to existing qualitative and quantitative characteristics of urban green spaces (UGS) in Çukurova district in Adana, Turkey. Firstly, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of UGS are divided into five main categories: area size, amenities of the UGS, transportation, focal points and population density. A set of 59 criteria are used by referring to the literature and expert views. Secondly, the Weighted Criteria Method was used to determine the significance of levels within these criteria and the existing situation of each park was identified and scored via field work. Thirdly, accounts of the distance of UGS service areas distance from people or users were optimized according to the total scores of existing UGS sites. Finally, the service areas of UGS were mapped by using Network Analysis tools. Results highlight some practical implications of optimizing accessibility for urban planning, for instance, specific land uses might be chosen for highly accessible UGS particularly those characterized by their high area size and equipment variety, low population density, and proximity to units