Mapping Priority Areas for Urban Afforestation Based on the Relationship Between Urban Greening and Social Vulnerability Indicators

Author(s)

Guerrero, Joao Vitor ; Escobar-Silva, Elton Vicente ; de Almeida, Claudia Maria ; Caiche, Daniel ; dos Santos, Alex Mota ; Nunes, Fabrizia Gioppo

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: FORESTS; v. 16, n. 6, p. 25-pg., 2025-06-03.

Abstract

Analyzing the population's access to ecosystem services offered by urban greening constitutes a measure of environmental justice, as it directly affects the quality of life and health of the population living in cities. This article is committed to proposing a geoenvironmental model in a geographic information system (GIS), envisaged to estimate the share of urban forests and green spaces in territorial planning units (TPUs), corresponding to neighborhoods of a pilot city, using high-spatial-resolution images of the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS-4A) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). These data were combined by means of a Boolean analysis with social vulnerability indicators assessed from census data related to income, education, housing, and sanitation. This model ultimately aims to identify priority areas for urban afforestation in the context of environmental justice and is thus targeted to improve the inhabitants' quality of life. The municipality of Goi & acirc;nia, the capital of Goi & aacute;s state, located in the Brazilian Central-West Region, was chosen as the study area for this experiment. Goi & acirc;nia presents 19.5% of its urban territory (82.36 km2) covered by vegetation. The analyses indicate an inequity in the distribution of urban forest patches and green areas in this town, where 7.8% of the total TPUs have low priority, 28.2% have moderate to low priority, 42.2% have moderate to high priority, and 21.8% have high priority for urban afforestation. This urban greening imbalance is particularly observed in its most urbanized central nuclei, associated with a peripheralization of social vulnerability. These findings are meant to support initiatives towards sound territorial planning processes designed to promote more sustainable and equal development to ensure environmental justice and combat climate change. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 24/02748-7 - A conceptual prototype of an urban flood early warning system with high spatial resolution: a study case in São Paulo city
• Grantee: Elton Vicente Escobar Silva
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• FAPESP's process: 20/09215-3 - Identification of pervious and impervious surface areas (ISA) using GEographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) and deep learning as input to drive a forecast model of urban growth
• Grantee: Cláudia Maria de Almeida
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 21/11435-4 - Scenario-based projections of future urban floods by means of a loose-coupling between a CA-based urban land use change model and a hydrodynamic model: a case study in São Caetano do Sul (SP)
• Grantee: Elton Vicente Escobar Silva
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate