Morphological Suitability Analysis of Urban Greenspaces with Rivers: A Case Study of the Lixiahe Riverine Area

Abstract

Retaining river channels and constructing waterfront greenspaces are the primary tasks of urban waterfront development in China. However, the natural characteristics of the water network are not fully considered in some urban greenspaces system planning and subsequent construction. We proposed a simple evaluation system to assess the morphological suitability between greenspaces and rivers in both the existing and planning stages. The evaluation indicators consist of two-level factors, in which the types of greenspace defined by the distance to the nearest river are the primary factors, including urban greenspace, waterfront greenspace and near-water greenspace, and the spatial forms of each type of greenspace are the secondary factors. The evaluation system can reflect the characteristics of each city and provide an overall comparison to cities of the same scale in similar regions. This study also investigated the impact of greenspace system planning on the current greenspace form. The results showed that near-water greenspace is a key factor that affects the matching degree among all primary factors, and the layout of greenspaces has a substantial impact on morphological suitability. Significant correlations between matching degree and evaluation factors were also found. This paper provides an in-depth understanding of urban greenspace form with urban rivers.