ABSTRACT
Urban parks provide a multitude of health benefits for citizens navigating the challenges of 21st-century living. And while this is well known by both scholars and practitioners, there is less understanding about the differential impacts of park size, type of facilities, community accessibility, and management. This is the central concern of the research reported here, which is a part of a larger project titled 'Better Parks, Healthier for All?' funded under the UKRI-NHMRC Built Environment and Prevention Research Scheme 2019. Within this broader context, the current paper discusses the results of a focus group to better understand how different park qualities promote physical and mental health. Using a COVID-safe research approach, we brought key park providers, park policymakers, and green and open space designers from New South Wales, Australia, together to participate in an online focus group in May 2021. The recruitment was based on the domain expertise and practitioner knowledge of the issues at hand. The ensuing discussion canvassed three areas of interest: What is park quality? How is park quality associated with health? How can we assess park quality and its ability to deliver health outcomes? A thematic analysis of the group's deliberations reveals a very holistic appreciation of park quality. The ability of a park network to provide a range of health outcomes is central to this view, with each park playing a role in delivering different benefits across the network. Our findings indicate that there are many opportunities to enhance the myriad of benefits and multiple ways to gain them. Co-design is essential to ensure that parks best suit the local context and provide relevant benefits to all stakeholders. In this way, local communities can gain ownership and enhanced agency in relation to using and enjoying their parks. We conclude that delivering locally networked parks and associated spaces for community health and wellbeing are essential in the broader context of global environmental sustainability.
ABSTRACT
Based on the pollution emission survey and the observation data of air quality and component stations, the WRF/SMOKE/CMAQ model system was adopted to analyze the impact of pollution sources and changes in meteorological conditions on air quality during the COVID-19 outbreak. The results showed that during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, in addition to the year-on-year increase in ρ(O3) in the Sichuan Basin, ρ(SO2), ρ(NO2), ρ(CO), ρ(PM2.5), and ρ(PM10) all decreased year-on-year, with decreases ranging from 8% to 41%. Compared with levels from the same period in 2019, ρ(Cl-), ρ(K+), ρ(Si), ρ(Al), ρ(Ca), and ρ(EC) in Chengdu decreased year-on-year, indicating that the emission reduction of construction sites, motor vehicles, industrial coal burned, and biomass combustion were the main reasons for the decrease in PM2.5 concentration. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the SO2, NOx, PM10, PM2.5, and VOCs industrial emissions decreased by 32%, 31%, 40%, 39%, and 41%, respectively. The traffic volume of motor vehicles in Chengdu was only 40.3% of that during the normal period, and the speed of traffic increased by 19.7%. The daily emissions of NOx, VOCs, and CO were reduced by 44.7%, 49.6%, and 38.0%, respectively. The non-equal decrease in pollutants made the atmospheric oxidability contributed by motor vehicle emissions relatively further enhanced. The unfavorable weather conditions in the Sichuan Basin caused ρ(PM2.5), ρ(NO2), ρ(SO2), ρ(O3), and ρ(PM10) to rise by 2%, 4%, 23%, 6%, and 8%, respectively. After deducting the influence of changes in weather conditions, the concentrations of ρ(PM2.5), ρ(NO2), ρ(SO2), and PM10 decreased by 21%, 45%, 31%, and 30%, respectively, and ρ(O3) increased by 12%. © 2021, Science Press. All right reserved.