Ecological utilization of urban green spaces: Baghdad / Dora as a case study

Abstract

Urban green spaces lungs of cities and the source of ecological services which are represented by (provisioning, Regulating, Cultural and Supporting services), therefore, it is important to provide green spaces within the cities and protect them. These ecological services can be achieved by applying ecological utilizing principles in the planning of urban green spaces. In Iraqi cities, urban green spaces are currently suffering from neglect from planning policies as well as the invasion by other land uses owing to the lack of knowledge of ecological importance and the weakness of laws and legislations that should protect green spaces. Consequently, that led to the deterioration, shrinkage, and fragmentation of green spaces within the urban fabric. The main objective is to analyse the application of ecological utilizing principles on green spaces in Dora municipality, Baghdad (which is been selected as the study area) in (2020) and compare it with (2005). The methodology of analysis of the ecological utilizing principles on green spaces is based on a series of landscape metrics, where part of it was measured by using “FRAGSTATS 4.2” software, while the other part was measured by descriptive and statistical analysis of data and field visits of the selected study area. The results showed that most of the ecological utilizing principles were reduced in 2020 compared with 2005. The paper concluded that the selected study area suffers from a weakness in the application of the principles of ecological utilisation in its green spaces, which consequently led to the loss of its ecological services. This paper suggested focusing more research on the ecological utilization of urban green spaces, incorporating its principles into urban planning policies, and promoting the role of green spaces as one of the most important ecosystems within the cities.