Decrease in the residents’ accessibility of summer cooling services due to green space loss in Chinese cities

[Display omitted] •China’s urban green space loss in 2003–2015 was equivalent to losing an area of 46.4 soccer fields per day.•Every 1 million growth of urban residents accompanied a decline of 50.9 ± 3.33 m2 green space per capita.•The cooling of green space increased while the area of cooling space decreased.•Urban residents locating outside the cooling space increased by 4.23 × 106 people per year. Urban green spaces (UGSs) reduce the surrounding temperature and create cooling areas as a buffer between people and high temperatures, thus helping residents adapt to the warming climate. However, the accessibility of UGS cooling services to the residents of cities remains largely unknown, which hinders decision-making regarding the formulation of climate adaptation and urban greening schemes. In the present study, we estimated the number of residents who accessed UGSs for cooling by analyzing the annual changes in such cooling areas during summer across 315 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2015. Approximately 93.3% of the cities showed significant decreasing trends (p