Cost Benefit Analysis of Urban Green Spaces

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Cities often tend to disregard the importance of public space.

In evaluating the growth parameter of a city, traditional infrastructure like highways, roads, buildings, service tunnels, plumbing etc. usually takes precedence, while Urban public spaces take a backseat.

Due to rapid urbanization and sudden influx of people in the cities, the quality of public open spaces is slowly deteriorating.

The spatial character of Urban green spaces found today is usually fragmented which in turn results in socioeconomic and environmental issues within cities.

As crucial components of the ecological network, green spaces play a vital role in providing environmental services which in turn contribute to improved physical health and augment mental health situations of the visitors of these spaces. The degradation of these spaces has resulted in loss of biodiversity, unhealthy environment and increase in health issues around the globe.

Need for Blue-Green Infrastructure

Traditionally it is believed that green-blue spaces do not help solving issues like unemployment, housing needs, education, economic growth etc. However, the blue green infrastructure not only adds aesthetic value to a city but offers a viable resolution to the impacts of climate change, like mitigating effects of flooding, rising sea levels, Urban heat island effects, air pollution etc.

Blue green infrastructure in most cases allows for removal or reduction of dependence on gray infrastructure like storm water drains, pumping stations, flood walls etc. allowing for a naturalized system that is more sustainable and resilient.

This in turn results in large scale cost saving that gets invested in hard gray infrastructure.

Apart from this, BGI plays a vital role in the social cohesion of a city by proving unhindered access to naturalized public spaces that are free and accessible for all.

Case of Singapore:

Due to rapid urbanization and land scarcity, Singapore has experienced a clear deterioration in its ecological belt with the natural mangroves, coastal belts, coral reefs and mud houses have diminished between the 1920’s and 1990’s.

Singapore boasts of being a “City in a garden’, however apart from the aesthetic greens, the natural ecological belt has decayed over the past years. In 1986 the tree and shrubbery cover were down to 36 pct. of the island.

Singapore has been trying to mitigate this effect of urbanization and in order to deal with the Urban pressure, ABC water schemes in conjunction with PUB and Nparks was established.

In a recent design scheme for a “sustainable Singapore”, the ministry of environment shows how the amount of green space has increased by 12 pct. from 2009 to 2013 and that it’s a convergent undertaking.

At the same time the access to the water bodies is also being improved and is more and more becoming a focus area.

One such project was the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park that transformed a 52-ha concrete river/park into a naturalized Blue green infrastructure.

To evaluate the cost benefit of an Urban Green space, the factor of Recreation and tourism was taken into consideration.

Recent surveys have shown a paradigm rise in the number of people visiting Urban green spaces (parks) for recreation and leisure purposes.

These spaces are no longer just considered as elements of beauty in a city but are rather valued as infrastructure that could cope with the increasing urban pressure within a city.

Both, local and global visitors use parks for various reasons which include-

1. Exercise

2. Social gatherings

3. Biodiversity studies

4. Leisure walks

5. Hiking

The spatial distribution of these visits are predominantly determined by factors such as distribution of population around the park, location of recreational sites around the park, travel time and costs involved in visiting the park and socioeconomic demographics of the site in general.

Material and Methods for evaluation:

1. Travel cost method-The basic concept of the travel cost method is that round-trip travel costs of a recreational site associate to the value of the site linked with visitors’ willingness to spend time for travelling to the area [1].

This may also include costs of accommodation in case of tourists, so the variable cost of visits can be of a wide spectrum.

2. Trip generation function- this is modeled as a derivative of multiple

Independent variables which include the social strata and population demographics of a site.

3. Recreational Value-the recreational value was determined using the Poisson regression model that assumes that the logarithm of its expected value can be modeled by a linear combination of unknown parameters.

4. Source of Information- GIS data of actual number of visitors to a park daily. This would also include source of journey and mode of transportation.

This is essential as walking/cycling would add no cost, however use of public/private mode of transport will have added value to the cost.

5. Willingness to pay factor-the amount of money a visitor is willing to spend on a single visit to the park. The monthly income and economic background play an important role in this evaluation.

6. Willingness to revisit and environmental assessment-the willingness to revisit or suggest someone to visit the park would primarily be based on the kinds of activities and the ecological environment the space provides.

Studies suggest that most people have a positive perception of these spaces and would revisit on regular basis.

7. Visitors’ recreational behavior-these may include the age, gender of the visitors and the kinds of activities they are involved in.

Sometimes, the educational and economic background of the visitors also helps to determine a pattern in the number of visits to a specific urban space.

Taking into consideration all the above factors an average value can be applied to analyze the cost effect of the space.

This study does not take into consideration ancillary factors like food and beverage costs around the Urban green space that would add value to the costs.

For example, the presence of a Mcdonald’s in the West Coast park of Singapore is an added value factor that stimulates people to go there for the recreational purposes.

I personally did not take this factor into consideration as I believe the park here is the stimulus for the F&B to work rather than the inverse case.

Most people visit the park for its ecological and health benefits and the presence of F&B, or any other source of economic regeneration is an ancillary factor in my case. The numbers suggest a gradual decrease in overall price of these spaces based on an established discount factor.

These could be accounted for the amount of money needed for the upgradation and renewal of services over the years or a decrease in number of visits with the increase in timelines.

However, I believe that a linear approach could probably not be applied in such a case as number of visitors cannot be directly projected for the future.

In addition to that, the popularity, and the services that a park provides may in turn see an increase in the number of visitors rather than a gradual decline.

The discount factor seems to be a skewed parameter that could not be universally applied for all case scenarios.

Conclusions and Arguments

The purpose of this study was to evaluate different assessment models for the recreational and tourism value of an Urban green space using multiple factors that seem plausible for the value addition to the economic growth.

Several factors and co-relations like the characteristics of the visitors, economic conditions, social backgrounds, recreational behaviors, demands and costs involved were evaluated to come up with a range of values that can be put on this blue-green infrastructure.

The results concluded that the recreational value was estimated to range between 3-7 per person/visit.

By taking into account an annual visitor count of 6,000,000(average estimate), the total recreational value was estimated to be 48,000,000 pounds.

As we can observe, over the years, the overall cost decreased and stands at 41,829,227 pounds over a course of five years.

Studies also revealed that there was a significantly affirmative relationship between place of residence, demographics, duration of stay and the recreational demand however the relation between the visitors monthly income and the recreational demand was antagonistic.

GIS tool was used to come up with numbers of visitors, modes of transport taken, time spent in the park etc.

This becomes an important operational tool that should be incorporated in everyday planning and policy making.

From the above methodological analysis, we have concluded that it is possible and worth to place a value on nature as it not only adds to the aesthetic value of the city but also actively contributes to the economic regression in indirect ways.

The natural world provides many essential services that are vital for human existence, but since they are free, they are assumed to not be adding any economic value to the functioning of a city.

Until now, major stress has been on how the existence of these urban spaces effects the value of real estate around them, but the direct economic impact of these spaces was probably not taken into consideration.

Apart from the tourism and leisure aspect of evaluating the cost benefits of a park, factors like ecology and biodiversity too add specific indirect costs that are usually neglected in the process.

Blue-green infrastructures are natural systems to reduce impacts of flooding, rising sea-levels, urban heat island effects etc.

The indirect costs these parks save should be taken into consideration while evaluating their monetarily benefits.

From the design perspective, it has been observed that these systems significantly help to counter the effects of flooding, which if not would result in escalated costs of recovery and infrastructure refurbishment.

With increased biodiversity, the number of visitors for educational purposes also increases which in-turn adds to the cost benefit.

Factors like preservation of natural habitats of the flora and fauna for instance bees that hep in the natural pollination process should be taken into consideration as these are hidden benefits that could significantly reduce agriculture costs.

Another important factor that usually gets neglected in the cost benefit analysis of Urban green spaces is the effect on mental and physical health of the visitors.

Estimating the well-being impact of these spaces could help us evaluate the health benefits of parks, reduce future exchequer expenses, reduce health inequalities and increase social cohesion and inequalities.

The practical evaluation of this methodology could be established at a local level and help in making significant impacts in terms of future planning.

Well-being valuation for non-markets goods like parks is directly proportional to the monetary value required to keep an individual equally satisfied with life as in the absence of the good for instance local community parks.

A World Health Organization report evaluated the effects of green spaces on physical activity and their potential to reduce public health inequalities.

It stated that “… access to public open space and green areas with appropriate recreation facilities for all age groups is needed to support active recreation”.

The provision of sufficient outdoor recreational spaces and green spaces will play an important role in helping public bodies achieve several health objectives, for example the Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales) 2015.

With the increase in number of individuals who use local parks, general health conditions of these individuals would drastically ameliorate and in turn result in reduced costs on health and add to consequent savings to the monetary resource.

This parameter is particularly useful when lower social economic groups are taken into consideration as this segment of the society would most benefit from these services.

Reducing social estrangement and consequently increasing ethnic cohesion through enhanced public spaces is a social cost that adds to the framework of a city.

In conclusion, it can be established the Urban green spaces are vital components of a city structure with immense added value that mostly gets neglected.

Various theories have suggested the value that we can place on these natural components, however a deeper analysis of multiple other factors would result in increase of this value per hectare.

These spaces can aid in regenerating employment, allow research and educational facilities while conserving the natural ecosystem.

A multidisciplinary socioeconomic and ecological approach is needed to strengthen this system of evaluation with accurate data sets. The EVL tool for instance too works on assumptions and generalized discount rates that are uniform for all situations. To get accurate results, a cohesive framework which takes into consideration all hidden factors of environmental impact should be taken into consideration.

However, it is clearly understood that these spaces are not mere artefacts of a city but are intangible assets essential for economic and social growth.