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Most cities in the world have experienced major developments in the past 20–25 years. However, research has showed that the development aspect of these cities has led to a decrease in green areas. This paper aims to assess the spatiotemporal variations of urban green areas during the period 1990–2015 with special regard to city of Erbil. The study...
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... order to avoid seasonally derived errors, it was decided to use scenes from the same season. The images were acquired in the summer months, which represent the same vegetation condition of green areas in the city (Table 1). In addition, the selection of specific periods reflects spatial distributions and temporal changes due to significant economic and urban development. ...
Citations
... The province of Duhok has the highest rate of green space with over 27%, Sulaimani and Erbil both have 9% green space (Wali, 2019). Authorities now would like to increase the green areas of major cities in the region to reach 15%, which is the minimum ratio provided by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (Hussein, 2019). Examples of this attempt are the construction of Sami Abdulrahman Park, which was built in 1998, covering about 200 ha in Erbil city, and the construction of Hawary Shar Park, which was built in 2016, covering 1,100 ha in Sulaimani city. ...
A sand or dust storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions, causing great damage to the economy, human health, and the environment. Sand and dust storms occur more frequently with higher intensity now in Iraq and Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) than they did in the past. This study proposes several pragmatic strategies to authorities in order to reduce the occurrence of sand and dust storms in KRI. The main cause of occurrence is associated with the decline in water resources in the region. Therefore, cooperation with neighboring countries is likely to be the most effective strategy. Control of a sharp rise in population and greenery expansion are other suggested mitigation strategies. Implementing these strategies by local and regional governments may reduce the occurrence of sand and dust storms to a certain extent. However, they cannot be eradicated as some of them originate from far countries and continents. Nevertheless, signs of climate change including sand storms are increasingly reported, we are, therefore, responsible to seek mitigation and adaptation strategies to the changes.
... Liu et al. [14] used multi-source remote sensing data to clarify the relationship between land use change and urban ecological environment in urban area of Beijing. Hussein et al. [15] extracted land use classification data by Landsat images and monitored urban vegetation coverage. This method usually depends on land use classification standards, so it is difficult to reflect the dynamic conversion between vegetation in different areas with different coverage grades. ...
With the rapid development of urban area of Xi’an in recent years, the contradiction between ecological environmental protection and urban development has become prominent. The traditional remote sensing classification method has been unable to meet the accuracy requirements of urban vegetation monitoring. Therefore, how to quickly and accurately conduct dynamic monitoring of urban vegetation based on the spectral component characteristics of vegetation is urgent. This study used the data of Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI in 2011, 2014 and 2017 as main information source and LSMM, region of variation grid analysis and other methods to analyse the law of spatial-temporal change of vegetation components in Xi’an urban area and its influencing factors. The result shows that: (1) The average vegetation coverage of the study area from 2011 to 2017 reached more than 50 %, meeting the standard of National Garden City (great than 40 %). The overall vegetation coverage grade was high, but it had a decreasing trend during this period. (2) The vegetation in urban area of Xi’an experienced a significant change. From 2011 to 2017, only 30 % of the low-covered vegetation, 24.39 % of the medium-covered vegetation and 20.15 % of the high-covered vegetation remained unchanged, while the vegetation in the northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast of the edge of the city’s third ring changed significantly. (3) The vegetation quality in urban area of Xi’an has decreased from 2011 to 2014 with 6.9 % of vegetation coverage reduced; while from 2014 to 2017, the overall vegetation quality of this area has improved with 2.1 % of the vegetation coverage increased, which was mainly attributed to urban construction and Urban Green Projects. This study not only can obtain the dynamic change information of urban vegetation quickly, but also can provide suggestions and data support for urban planning of ecological environmental protection.
... Risk of mortality was found to decrease with increased greenness around peopleʹs residence [12]. Reduced urban greenness space was observed in many cities, such as Erbil, Iraq [13] and Shanghai, China [14], as well as some other cities in Eurasia [15]. A recent study showed that a consistent decline of urban greenspace was observed at both old and new urban areas in the majority of Chinese populous cities in the past two decades [16]. ...
... Particularly, mapping urban greenness at local scales can highlight location-dependent difference [29] and urban greenness mapping at high spatial resolutions is desired in cities with heterogeneously environmental conditions [27,30]. By applying novel image classification algorithms, green vegetation cover could be accurately extracted from remotely sensed images [13]. ...
... Urban vegetation plays vital role for the sustainable development of urban ecosystems. With rapid urbanization and increasing intensified human-related activities in many cities, decreased ecological services have been observed due to significant loss of urban greenness [13,68]. Many studies have confirmed that urbanization imposed a direct impact on urban greenness space [10], and reduced exposure to greenness could cause environmental stresses to public health issues [1]. ...
Urban greenness plays a vital role in supporting the ecosystem services of a city. Exploring the dynamics of urban greenness space and their driving forces can provide valuable information for making solid urban planning policies. This study aims to investigate the dynamics of urban greenness space patterns through landscape indices and to apply geographically weighted regression (GWR) to map the spatially varied impact on the indices from economic and environmental factors. Two typical landscape indices, i.e., percentage of landscape (PLAND) and aggregation index (AI), which measure the abundance and fragmentation of urban greenness coverage, respectively, were taken to map the changes in urban greenness. As a case study, the metropolis of Wuhan, China was selected, where time-series of urban greenness space were extracted at an annual step from the Landsat collections from Google Earth Engine during 2000-2018. The study shows that the urban greenness space not only decreased significantly, but also tended to be more fragmented over the years. Road network density, normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), terrain elevation and slope, and precipitation were found to significantly correlate to the landscape indices. GWR modeling successfully captures the spatially varied impact from the considered factors and the results from GWR modeling provide a critical reference for making location-specific urban planning.
... The rate of arable land in the governorate of Erbil is 41.3%, 92.7% that rely on rainfall (KRG, 2016). Green areas cover 12% of the urban area, and the authorities want to raise it to 15%, which is the minimum ratio set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (Hussein, 2018). There are numerous parks and gardens around the city, including Sami Abdulrahman Park, Minare Park, Gllkand Park, and Shanadar Park (Figure 3-3). ...
... The rate of arable land in the governorate of Erbil is 41.3%, 92.7% that rely on rainfall (KRG, 2016). Green areas cover 12% of the urban area, and the authorities want to raise it to 15%, which is the minimum ratio set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (Hussein, 2018). There are numerous parks and gardens around the city, including Sami Abdulrahman Park, Minare Park, Gllkand Park, and Shanadar Park (Figure 3-3). ...
