Characteristics of Urban Recreational Parks and Visitation for Environmental and Social Benefits: The Case of Six Selected Parks in Addis Abab
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2022-06-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Urban recreational parks have a role in providing environmental and social benefits. These
benefits are not yet used due to lack of effective intervention that improve urban park
characteristics which can attract the parks visitor’s interest as well as improve the environmental
benefits. This study is aimed at investigating the role of park characteristics in providing
environment and social benefits. For this, the study employed descriptive and inferential research
design with mixed approaches. The data were collected from primary and secondary data
sources. The primary data sources were a survey of 385 park visitors, three key informant
interview, and researcher observation in the six recreational parks. The secondary data sources
were from studies, government documents, online and off-lines materials. Sample recreational
parks in the city were selected through a stratified purposive sampling basing the recreational
park size and administrational level. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential
analysis method. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. Based on visitors’
response, it was found that recreational parks have environmental (78%) and social (65%)
benefits. Among the park characteristics in the sampled parks, vegetation and climate comfort
were the highest whereas accessibility, management and maintenance were ranked the lowest by
park visitors. In addition, the findings indicated that better facilities, events in the parks and
vegetation were among the major characteristics of park that attract visitors. Furthermore, it was
found that 37.7% park visitors were visiting parks weekly. Moreover, 43.9% recreational park
visitors usually spent 1 to 2 hours in recreational parks and about 82% of visitors preferred to
come in weekends. The park visitors ranked the city parks and had set the criteria for ranking
which is important to understand what attract visitors to visit a certain recreational parks. These
findings indicated that the park characteristics has a relation with park visitation which has an
impact in achieving environmental and social benefits from recreational parks.
Description
Keywords
Recreational, Park, Visitation, Social, Environmental, Benefits