Data on different types of green spaces and their accessibility in the seven largest urban regions in Finland

This repository contains data described in the article "Data on different types of green spaces and their accessibility in the seven largest urban regions in Finland". More details of the data are available in the upcoming data description article (manuscript can be found in this repository). Abstract: Access to good quality green spaces in urban regions is vital for the well-being of citizens. In this article, we present data on green space quality and path distances to different types of green spaces. The path distances represent green space accessibility using active travel modes (walking, cycling). The path distances were calculated using the pedestrian street network across the seven largest urban regions in Finland. We derived the green space typology from the Urban Atlas Data that is available across functional urban areas in Europe and enhanced it with national data on water bodies, conservation areas and recreational facilities and routes from Finland. We extracted the walkable street network from OpenStreetMap and calculated shortest paths to different types of green spaces using open-source Python programming tools. Network distances were calculated up to ten kilometers from each green space edge and the distances were aggregated into a 250 m x 250 m statistical grid that is interoperable with various statistical data from Finland. The geospatial data files representing the different types of green spaces, network distances across the seven urban regions, as well as the processing and analysis scripts are shared in an open repository. These data offer actionable information about green space accessibility in Finnish city regions and support the integration of green space quality and active travel modes into further research and planning activities. Related research article: Viinikka, A., Tiitu, M., Heikinheimo, V., Halonen, J. I., Nyberg, E., & Vierikko, K. (2023). Associations of neighborhood-level socioeconomic status, accessibility, and quality of green spaces in Finnish urban regions. Applied Geography, 157, 102973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2023.102973The authors thank the HYVIÖ project team at the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE and Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). This work would not have been possible without open data from OpenStreetMap contributors, Finnish Environment Institute SYKE and the European Environment Agency (EEA), and open-source software from the open source developer community. Funding: This work was supported by the 'Lähiöohjelma' programme 2020-2022 at the Finnish Ministry of the Environment through the HYVIÖ project (Spatial information and residents' experiences for development of comfortable living environments, decision number VN/10679/2020-YM-3) and the Strategic Research Council (SRC) at Academy of Finland through the STYLE project (Healthy Lifestyles to Boost Sustainable Growth, project number 320402)