Using Crowdsourced Big Data to Unravel Urban Green Space Utilization during COVID-19 in Guangzhou, China

• Published in: Land Vol. 11; no. 7; p. 990
• Main Authors: Liu, Shuhao, Su, Chang, Yang, Ruochen, Zhao, Jianye, Liu, Kun, Ham, Kwangmin, Takeda, Shiro, Zhang, Junhua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 29.06.2022
• Subjects: Agriculture; automation; Big Data; China; Chinese history; Cities; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 infection; Data mining; Ecosystem services; ecosystems; Emotions; expected population density; Green infrastructure; land; Mental health; Open spaces; pandemic; Pandemics; Population density; Preferences; Public health; religious attributes; S; Social networks; urban green space utilization; urban green spaces; urban green spaces; urban green space utilization; expected population density; religious attributes; emotions; COVID-19; Urban planning; Utilization; Guangzhou China; China
• ISSN: 2073-445X; 2073-445X
• DOI: 10.3390/land11070990

Urban green spaces (UGSs) can meet the spiritual and cultural needs of citizens and provide various ecosystem services. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the utilization of UGSs has been affected in various countries worldwide. This study considered 13 UGSs in Guangzhou, China, as examples. It obtained user check-in data by sampling the check-in pages of Sina Weibo locations using a Python-based web crawler program. The study was conducted for 731 days from 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2021, during different phases of the pandemic. Based on automated Chinese corpus recognition technology, statistical results were obtained after periodization and sentiment calculation. The study assessed the pandemic’s impact on the use of UGSs by analyzing the time, frequency, and emotions of residents visiting UGSs. The study concluded that the emotions of UGS users during COVID-19 tended to be positive. They tended to choose UGSs with low expected population density and visited UGSs on weekdays. Additionally, the religious attributes of UGSs also influenced their utilization.