Noise is steadily on the rise in urban settings, creating a potential health hazard as well as being a nuisance. In major European cities, noise levels are so high that the majority of urban parks can no longer truly serve as recreational environments, a problem the WHO and the EU are attempting to address. This study explores various strategies that promote the sustainable development of urban...

Research has found that urban fringe parks are particularly sensitive to population growth and rising demands for recreation and tourism. High visitor levels, a more sophisticated and demanding visitor, and park budgetary pressures have demanded a rethink of management approaches, including the benefits of partnerships. This paper describes two current partnerships in Australia where the manage...

Residences located close to urban parks frequently sell at a premium. The increased home values represent a ‘capitalization’ of a park’s value to proximate homeowners and this phenomenon has been termed ‘the proximate principle’. The evolution of the principle from squares and gardens in small private estates to large park areas occurred with the development of Regent’s Park in London. The prox...

Proactive management of invasive species in urban areas is critical to restricting their overall distribution. The objective of this work is to determine whether advanced remote sensing technologies can help to detect invasions effectively and efficiently in complex urban ecosystems such as parks. In Surrey, BC, Canada, Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) and English ivy (Hedera helix) are ...

objectives the aim of this study was to assess soils of khorramabad metropolis in order to establish the concentration of lead and develop a contamination factor map. materials and methods soil samples were collected from 25 different urban parks in khorramabad, iran. the mean pb contents in the urban topsoil samples were compared with mean concentrations for other cities around the world. a sp...

BACKGROUND The recent increase in childhood obesity is expected to add significantly to the prevalence of chronic diseases. We used multivariate multilevel analysis to examine associations between parks/green space and childhood overweight/obesity across communities in Calgary, Canada, a city characterized by intensified urban sprawl and high car use. METHODS Body Mass Index was calculated fr...

Feral pigeons (Columbia livia) live in close contact with humans and other animals. They can transmit potentially pathogenic and zoonotic agents. The objective of this study was to isolate and detect strains of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli and Campylobacter jejuni of urban feral pigeons from an area of Lima, Peru. Fresh dropping samples from urban parks were collected for microbiological isol...

In the political arena, it is almost always advantageous to frame an issue in economic terms when seeking support from a legislative body. This paper describes, measures, and provides illustrative examples for estimating the economic value of 12 benefits associated with urban parks. Seven of these constitute a template for measuring the economic value of an urban parks system that has been deve...