Optimum Site Suitability Analysis for Urban Open Space Facilities using Geospatial Techniques

Fast economic development and expansive urban growth necessitates an urban development agenda that emphasis on adequate urban open space facility spatial planning and developmental initiatives aimed at ensuring proximity and accessibility to essential urban facilities for all urban residents. Locating suitable site in the disparity region for open space facilities such as parks and playgrounds enhances the quality of citizen’s life. To address the necessitating concern of the existing trend of uneven distribution, the Gravity-based spatial accessibility model i.e. Three-step floating catchment area method is opted to identify the derprived region and Multi-criteria decision analysis model is used to locate optimum site in the deprived region. Tiruchirappalli city has 37 parks and 14 playgrounds, out of which 14 parks closed due to improper maintenance. Among the 65 wards, it was observed that 33 wards had no accessibility to parks within the threshold distance of 3 km with the 73.5% of the city population. The questionnaire of 821 samples was collected in both well-served region and unserved region of parks and playgrounds facilities, it states that the 82% of residences in well-served region residents access frequently whereas only 23% of residences access in the unserved region. Hence, to maximize the accessibility, the new open space can be provided in the optimum sites obtained by Analytical Hierarchy Process that shows the area of 7.68 km2 as very highly suitable category and 48.48 km2 as highly suitable category. Thereby it becomes important to focus on proper spatial planning of urban facilities and transportation services needed for the establishment of an efficiently functioning city. © 2022, The Institution of Engineers (India).