Detecting changes in green and blue spaces: Modeling based on statistical approach

Abstract

Green and blue spaces are an important part of a healthy urban environment. This study evaluates temporal patterns of urban green and blue space structure changes in Kraków, Poland over the last two decades (2002–2022). Annual land use time series of the following variables were employed: green spaces, blue spaces, forest land, meadows, pastures, and leisure land. The analysed data were provided by the Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography in Poland from the public cadastral register. The paper employed statistical methods, including the Mann-Kendall (MK) test for monotonic trend. It further used the Akaike information criterion, an approach founded on the information theory, to select one of four potential models (linear, quadratic, power, or logarithmic). The results indicate a trend in each of the six series. The area of green spaces has been demonstrated to decline while blue spaces grew. The most significant changes from 2002 to 2022 occurred in the area of meadows, which shrunk by 509 ha and in pastures, which declined by 351 ha. Forests and wooded areas grew by 324 ha and leisure lands by 1 ha, while blue spaces expanded by 160 ha in total. The results can be useful for drawing up informed, sustainable governance strategies for urban green and blue spaces. The research is relevant to the urban environment because the distribution of urban green and blue spaces is critical for ecosystem services. Moreover, such research is not common, which is indicative of its originality and confirmed by the bibliometric analysis.