Spatial modelling of the householders' perception and assessment of the potentiality to improve the urban green coverage in residential areas: A case study from Issadeen Town Matara, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Urban forestry has become an important concept in modern city planning for many reasons. Different forms of urban green spaces can be seen in towns as open spaces, tree belts, parks and home gardens. The main objective of this research was to assess the urban green spaces in Issadeen Town, a small residential area in Matara, Sri Lanka. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the study area covering a zone with 200 individual houses. The collected data were entered into a Geographical Information System (GIS) platform, taking one house as the unit of analysis. There was a marked difference between the numbers of trees growing in owner-occupied houses and rental houses. It was also assessed that 11% of the study area had good green cover while 8% of this area had medium level green cover that had the potential to rise to a higher category. The occupants of houses who were living in the high green cover areas stated that they had a positive perception about their environment, especially cooler temperatures. Therefore, they intended to maintain the trees in their housing plots. However, there were other occupants accounting 50.5% of the total, who were not interested or involved in the process of increasing the green cover. This is a matter that the authorities may have to address in future.

Keywords: Environmental assessment, geospatial model, green space, urban planning, urban forestry