Dr. Nina Schwarz, prof. Wieteke Willemen
Q4: Intra Urban Spatial Patterns and Processes Q5: Spatial analyses of ecosystem services: nature’s benefits to people
This MSc research topic is embedded in the project Towards a green and more liveable Paramaribo http://www.groenparamaribo.org/en/ and its follow-up that was recently granted.
Very often, urban green spaces are unevenly distributed within a city, meaning that accessibility to urban green spaces within a specific radius is different across neighbourhoods. Also, residents of high, middle and low income often concentrate in specific areas of a city if it is segregated. Both can lead to issues of justice related to urban green spaces (Wolch et al. 2014). The purpose of this MSc research is to investigate to what extent these issues are also present in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname.
Wolch, J. R., Byrne, J., & Newell, J. P. (2014). Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The challenge of making cities “just green enough.” Landscape and Urban Planning, 125, 234–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.01.017
The MSc research will explore the accessibility of and issues of justice with respect to urban green spaces in Paramarbo, Suriname: How are urban green spaces distributed in the city? How accessible are urban green spaces to residents of the city? The MSc student is free to develop a research proposal within this frame, selecting research methods as required for answering the specific research question.
Example for a mixed-methods study on urban lakes in Bangalore, India: Derkzen, M. L., Teeffelen, A. J. A. Van, Nagendra, H., and Verburg, P. H. (2017b). Shifting roles of urban green space in the context of urban development and global change. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 29, 32–39. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2017.10.001