Urban land resources and urban planting — case studies from Denmark

Trees benefit urban communities environmentally, esthetically and recreationally. This raises the question of whether Denmark’s towns have enough space for more trees. A research project investigated this by examining in detail the potential for more sustainable planning and management of urban green space in towns with 10,000–40,000 inhabitants and was completed in 1999. The paper describes the vegetation cover in selected urban areas, including the cover of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs) and discusses the land area potentially available for supplementary planting in urban zones. The method used to map urban vegetation is discussed and related to Denmark’s administrative practice and planning system. Case studies are presented for various categories of urban land use to highlight the variation in vegetation cover and to identify the land area available for increasing tree cover. Apart from undeveloped urban land, the largest areas potentially available for planting included industrial zones, institutional zones and apartment complexes. Other types of residential district lacked the coherent space normally required for sustainable planting. The cover of trees and shrubs in the case study towns is very limited, but large areas of non-functional lawn could be available for planting. Lawn comprised the largest proportion of the urban surface cover in the case studies. The findings of the case studies were assembled into data sets relating to each type of urban zone and summed up in green structure maps based on geographical information systems. This approach can provide an overview of best practices to allow areas lacking vegetation cover to be identified. This assessment method can usefully be applied to incorporate issues related to the urban natural environment and urban greening potential into conventional planning practice in Denmark’s municipalities.