An environmental justice study on spatial access to parks for youth by using an improved 2SFCA method in Wuhan, China

Recent environmental justice studies have focused on measuring access to parks for young people due to the decreasing contact with nature for outdoor activities in most developed countries. Results of these analyses reflect the disparities in accessibility better but with digress among different access models. The present study aims to explore an appropriate accessibility measurement for youth and proposes a supply-demand improved two step floating catchment area (2FSCA) method to estimate environmental justice in access to parks in developing countries. Results indicated that the proposed method could identify more underserved communities and youth population with lower mean values of accessibility compared with the traditional 2SFCA method. Spatial accessibility exhibited clustering characteristics in three scenarios wherein high-accessibility areas were clustered nearby the center along the Yangtze River with larger parks, whereas those with low-accessibility were distributed in the eastern and southern regions. Among three age groups, the 0–6 years age group had slightly higher disparity of accessibility than the 7–12 years age group and the majority of teenagers could enjoy equitable park service. Spatial correlation analysis suggested that policy strategies and housing price were the main factors influencing accessibility and several non-dominating influencing factors were also identified from surrounding land use patterns. These findings may provide a comprehensive and realistic perspective on acquainting with accessibility and availability of green space for youth and help urban planners formulate effective policies and strategies to ease spatial imbalance. •The proposed method can identify more underserved areas with lower mean values of accessibility compared to the traditional 2SFCA method.•High-accessibility areas are clustered nearby the urban center along the Yangtze River, while low-accessibility distributed in the eastern and southern regions.•The 0–6 years age group appeared slightly higher disparity of accessibility than the 7–12 years age group, and the majority of teenagers could enjoy equitable park service.•Policy and urban planning are the main factors influencing spatial access to parks and several weak influences presented by the surrounding land use factors.