Greening potential of derelict and vacant lands in urban areas

This research proposes a more complete, easy and unique method to assess the greening potential of derelict and vacant urban lands in order to prioritize them for reclamation. Greening these lands can convert a problem into an opportunity, assuming that green spaces must fulfill multiple functions, being part of a green infrastructure. The evaluation cover a wide range of criteria that reflect the complexity of the city and consider environmental, ecological, social and economic aspects related to the local urban structure. The criteria were organized into three groups: ecology, stormwater, and community. For each criterion, there are quantitative or qualitative indicators, measured by continuous, binary or multi-categorical parameters converted into numerical values in order to create a ranking score from highest to lowest potential of greening. The city São Bernardo do Campo, in the Metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil, was chosen as the case study to apply this method. The city is experiencing a post-industrial process and has few urban green spaces accessible to the community, while there are several empty and abandoned areas. We identified and mapped sixty derelict and vacant lands, of which ten were chosen as samples to evaluate. The results revealed that 40% of evaluated lands have high potential to reclaim into green spaces, 40%, medium potential and 20%, low potential. Nature or vocation as green spaces was also evaluated: 50% of them have social importance, 20%, environmental, and 30% socio-environmental. The vocation is an important information since it identifies some areas that despite their medium-low potential, they should not be rejected due to their social value. The results can drive a preliminary environmental planning decision making, to be applied in any city that faces similar problems of land dereliction, offering support to professionals to prioritize the reclamation of new urban green spaces.