Association between public and private greenspace availability and electricity consumption

Abstract

Natural environment including greenspace has been suggested to be beneficial for health and well-being of urban residents. Several mechanisms have been proposed, including mitigation of environmental stressors, such as air pollution, and thermal stress. However, the role of greenspace on reducing electricity consumption in the urban environments has not yet been reported using these mechanisms. The present study used the annual electricity consumption of Yazd city dwellers in the period (2016–2019) and examined its association with different greenspace indicators at their residential addresses. Different private and public greenspace indicators were defined, including private garden access and area, distance to the nearest park (regional and local), percentage of land covered with urban greenspace and residential surrounding greenness (by normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI]) at different buffer size around residential addresses. Different demographic, urban design and contextual variables were included as the covariates in the models. An inverse association was found between the increase of greenspace in a private garden and the amount of electricity consumption in all the included buildings. One-unit increase in NDVI was significantly associated with 2046.5 kWh/y lower electricity consumption (95 % CI: 1151.79: 2941.21). An increase of 1 m2 in the area of a private garden was associated to 1.2 kWh/y lower energy consumption. A stronger association was also found between the private garden area and lower electricity consumption in contemporary urban texture compared to two other urban texture (contemporary urban texture: β: −1.97, 95 % CI: −2.39 to −1.54, old urban texture: β: −1.21, 95 % CI: −1.97 to −0.46, and historical urban texture: β: −0.25, 95 % CI: −1 to 0.49). The results of this study can strengthen previous theories about eco-friendly cities and sustainable cities. Promoting availability and access to greenspace can help urban sustainability through lower energy consumption.