Citation:

Sears, A. AND L. Jackson. Proximity to Parks in the Durham, NC EnviroAtlas Community Area. Presented at Yale Urban Ecosystem Services Symposium, New Haven, CT, January 24, 2014.

Impact/Purpose:

To communicate ecosystem services information available in EnviroAtlas that can facilitate community decision-making to benefit public health.

Description:

People use parks to socialize, exercise, recreate, and enjoy nature. Having a park within walking distance creates opportunities for individuals to experience the benefits of trees and other green space on health and well-being. These maps are part of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s EnviroAtlas, which is an effort to illustrate a variety of ways that the built and natural environment can support human health and well-being. The community component of this project involves producing high-resolution data in selected US cities and adjoining rural areas. One of the factors being mapped is the proximity of any location within a focal community to the nearest park entrance. Park entrances were derived based on available federal, state, county, and local data, as well as aerial photography. The distance to each park entrance was then calculated along walkable roads for up to 5 kilometers. All roads with less than two entrance and/or exit ramps were considered walkable. Using the distance calculation, proximity zones were interpolated across the selected area. From these distance zones, the residential population within easy walking distance (250 meters) of a park entrance was calculated for each Census block group. The purpose of these layers is to identify neighborhoods and demographic groups with ready access to parks, as well as those areas that are under-served by existing facilities and may benefit from additional parks or new entrances.

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