Moving Window Method: An Effective Approach to Measure Surrounding Greenness

A number of studies have shown that urban green space (UGS) can improve the health and well-being of urban residents. However, the commonly used UGS measurement method has its obvious limitations, such as abrupt changes of measurement results in adjacent sites and complex operation process. This paper proposed a new approach to measure surrounding greenness based on moving window method, and identified its characteristics and applicability by comparison with the grid method and the buffer method in the core area of Szekesfehervar, Hungary. Spatial distribution, average, standard deviation and correlation were compared between the three kinds of measurement results. In general, all above three methods could describe the variety of surrounding greenness in areas with different building density, and the result of moving window method was more similar to the result of grid method. The descending order of the probability of contacting surrounding greenness is residential area, research area and commercial area. Statistically significant associations were found between the measurement results of the moving window method and the grid method as well as the moving window method and the buffer method (both R2 > 0.87). Moreover, moving window method was well suited for measuring surrounding greenness because of its ability to describe spatial distribution in more details.