Supply and demand assessment of urban recreation service and its implication for greenspace planning-A case study on Guangzhou

Nature-based recreation in urban areas is important for the well-being of citizens. Spatial quantification of recreation service supply and demand can support urban greenspace (UGS) planning by revealing if supply meets demand. This research proposes a comprehensive framework to assess urban recreation service supply (characterized by available UGS area within a certain radius around a residence) and demand (characterized by UGS area required by the population for recreation) in the context of UGS planning. This framework contains three elements: (a) multi-scale spatial quantification of the supply–demand balance; (b) spatial match of supply and demand; (c) spatial clustering analysis of the supply–demand balance. We present a case study for the city of Guangzhou, China, and discuss its implications for UGS management. We found that although there is a high supply of UGS in Guangzhou, between 88% and 96% of inhabitants have a recreation service deficit, depending on the demand criteria. Recreation service supply–demand balance showed a strong clustering pattern. The top 10% of deficit clustering area accounted for 47% of the under supplied population and 57% of the UGS deficit. Our study indicates that the demand for recreational UGS must be considered to adequately represent recreation benefits in urban areas, and illustrates how hotspot analyses can be used to target prioritized area for UGS management. We discuss the limitations of the framework and possible improvements for future studies.