Amorphous Nature of Green Spaces in Indian Urban Planning

Abstract

Green spaces play an important role in the well-being of society. Many research works have tried to establish green space's associations with air quality, reduced air pollution, controlled traffic noise, cooler temperature, and improved users' mental health. However, there are some contradictions in using the term 'Greenspace' and 'Green space' while formulating urban planning policies in India. The researchers have given an insight into these terminologies; still, there is some lacuna in applying these terminologies. This research work attempts to analyze the existing literature relating to this field and tries to figure out the interchangeability of these terms. For this objective, a literature review has been done. These terms have been observed to differ in meaning, attributes, characteristics, usability, and decision-making.

Greenspaces and Green Spaces

Urban Greenspaces in the city play a vital role in the overall well-being of humankind. Greenspaces that include natural elements like a green cover, soil, water, and access positively impact human health. Greenspaces may find their share in different land-use zoning, such as Residential, commercial, transportation, industrial, etc., to maintain a balance between hard and soft elements of the emerging landscape. Green space has also been used as two words, green and space, where the adjective green describes the space and is defined as "land covered with some form of vegetation" (Taylor and Hochuli, 2017; Warren, 1973). The distinction between these terms is that in an urban and rural context, rest is used synonymously. In an urban context, these terms have been used interchangeably. In the rural context, green areas in and around the outskirts are considered green spaces.

Greenspaces have numerous benefits for humans, such as mental health, stress and violence reduction, improved concentration, physical benefits and social benefits, i.e., Crime reduction, Increased workplace productivity, Safer driving, Economic stimulation and Positive effects on children (D. Kim and Son, 2022; Porchezhian and Irulappan, 2022; Wu, Chen et al., 2022). Moreover, greenspaces in cities help to reduce the environmental impacts and urban heat island effects. Due to multiple benefits, the Indian government has also ensured to include Greenspace in achieving their overall goals of various missions and policies in line with Sustainable cities and communities (SDG11).

Myers (1975) observed that the inherent benefits of greenspaces relate to health benefits, recreational opportunities, aesthetic values, and a range of other environmental advantages (Dahmann, Wolch et al., 2010; Wolch, Byrne et al., 2014). The significance of 'Greenspace' and 'Green space' has been extensively explained in the subject of planning (Maruani and Amit-Cohen, 2007; Springgate, 2008). From an ecological point of view, urban Greenspace is defined as one that includes parks, forests, trees, cemeteries, or allotments. It provides a wide range of ecosystem services to the resident of the city (Bastian, Haase et al., 2012). Greenspace may also be characterized as densely populated areas surrounded by woody and associated vegetation (Strohbach and Haase, 2012). Greenspaces are predominantly defined as civic accessible areas with natural vegetation, i.e., grass, trees or plants, and built-up environmental features like nature reserves and urban parks (Lachowycz and Jones, 2013).

Green spaces are sometimes privately owned, such as higher education campuses, farmland, grassland, golf course, privately owned green space, historical sites, and institutional or corporate grounds where the accessibility is restricted. They are generally found their share in the outskirt of the area. These areas usually support commercial activities like agriculture activities, herbs and timber merchanting. Green spaces could be defined as "land covered with some form of vegetation".

Differs from the open space, the terms' Greenspace' and 'Green space' in an urban context these terms for similar and different contexts create a layer of vagueness (Cetin, 2015; Dipeolu and Ibem, 2020; Grunewald, Richter et al., 2017; J. Kim and Nicholls, 2016; S. Lahoti, A. Lahoti et al., 2019; Lee, 2019; Turaga, Jha-Thakur et al., 2020; Ugolini, Massetti et al., 2021; Wan and Shen, 2015). While in a few cases, these words were explained partially, several articles did not utilize such an explanation. In the referred cases, the explanation may or may not be clear and precisely define what is meant by 'Greenspace' and 'Green space.' Many articles used the second term to express the location and objective of their study.

Comparing government policy on these terminologies is another research direction. As mentioned earlier, various researchers from different disciplines gave different meanings to 'Greenspace' and 'Green space,' and there is no clear distinction between these terminologies. In order to have an unambiguous meaning of these terms, this paper attempts to differentiate between 'Greenspace' and 'Green space' along with their dichotomous character.

In a developing economy like India, around 700 million rural population is expected to move into cities by 2050. In this Context Sen and Guchhait (2021) discussed the role of cultural ecosystem services and their impact on city life and developed a framework for cultural ecosystem services. As India is the fastest-growing economy in which, the manufacturing and service sector plays an important role. The rapid growth in urbanization and industrialization has a negative impact on the environment. In this scenario, green spaces will be helpful in reducing air pollution, creating a sustainable future for upcoming generations, improve society's health, and reduce mortality.

Studies which covered Indian cities such as Nagpur (S. Lahoti, A. Lahoti et al., 2019), Gandhinagar; Chandigarh; Delhi (Mitra, 2013); Bangalore; Jaipur (Chaudhry, Bagra et al., 2011), Mumbai (Sathyakumar, Ramsankaran et al., 2019). Hwang, Nasution et al. (2020) suggest that Indian cities lack the amount of Greenspace per capita as per WHO guidelines. Even when we divide the city into different zones, most of the zones do not fit the greenspace requirements as per any guidelines. The available literature on UGS strongly suggests that all Indian cities are subjected to greenspace deterioration and degradation due to enormous pressure on it. The conventional planning methods used by local governments are one of the reasons cited in the "Urban Green Growth Strategies for Indian Cities" (Asia, 2015), and the lack of data accessibility for urban centres are additional factors that impede the planning process (Chaturvedi, Kamble et al., 2013). Anguluri and Narayanan, (2017) Analyze the Greenspace in Gulbarga city, highlighting the need for additional research on urban centres to support the urban planning process. Due to a lack of baseline data and non-uniformly land allocations, developing cities are going through major transitions .

The rest of the paper has five sections. Section 2 discusses the methodology; section 3 discusses the literature overview on 'Greenspace' and 'Green Space' perspective, character, its aspects related to humans and recent planning cases related to the Indian context; section 4 discusses the challenges and consequences of interpretation terms; their implications in Indian context and section 5 discuss the conclusion and limitation of the study.

Methodology

Understanding the meaning and application of the terms 'Greenspace' and 'Green space' is essential to studying the research material. Hence a rigorous literature review was done. A stepwise framework of methodology has been adopted for the literature review, as shown in Figure 1. For the same, some peer-reviewed scholastic literature and the Boolean search function of 'Greenspace' OR 'green space' AND 'Challenges' OR 'Perception' OR 'Consequences' OR 'Human intrusion' was conducted for the identification and sorting of articles for the review by using the guidelines of the 'Preferred Reporting Item for the Systematic Review' (PRISMA Statement) as directed by (Moher, 2009).

Initially, a record of seventy-five papers was identified. Sixty articles from the initial list of papers were scrutinized from different publication types before excluding records, i.e., book chapters, reviews, duplicates, or grey literature. Then the rest of the inscriptions, i.e., 58, were finalized ahead for their significance to the investigation, and three additional articles were discarded as insignificant (n = 55). Consequently, a count of 55 papers was selected to explain Greenspace and Greens Space with a detailed evaluation of challenges and consequences. The study inclusion criteria were as follows:

1. English Language Greenspace articles

2. Articles on greenspaces published prior to March 2021.

3. Only Articles from a peer-reviewed journal should be accepted.

4. Articles focused on the area of greenspaces and relevant subject areas.

5. An editorial or abstract is ineligible.

To access how policymakers and researchers have used and defined Greenspace, different databases were searched out. From the available database, it was determined to pull out the papers returned by a 'Greenspace' search, 1) Searching results showed a model of both applications of the nomenclature (green space and Greenspace), 2) Some returned research were not found to be relevant with study approach (for an instant the spaces which are green in colour were described environmentally). Papers from different disciplines with burning areas of research that had been published in some peer-reviewed journals are mentioned in Table 1.

Figure 1. Framework for quantitative systematic literature review (PRISMA Statement)

Table 1. Number of journals with key terms such as Greenspace across all disciplines

Journal Classification	Articles	Primary Terms
Environmental Sciences, Biological and Earth	13	Greenspace; public Greenspace; urban Greenspace; green space;
Architectural, Environment, and Building	11	Greenspace; urban Greenspace; productive urban Greenspace; green space;
Medic and Health Sciences	5	Green space; Greenspace
Social science	3	Greenspace; urban Greenspace; green space
Multidisciplinary	23	Greenspace; urban Greenspace; green space; Greenspace; public Greenspace; urban green space; green areas

Literature Review

In the early 18th century, garden squares and parks were first introduced in urban areas. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the parkway movement, headed by Frederick Law Olmsted, led to the belief that Greenspace was an important cultural and social element of the urban form. The idea of integrating green space into the urban development process came out of the regeneration of the environmental movement in the 1960s (Jenkins and Pigram, 2004). Although public access is defined for various green spaces, it does not imply public accessibility automatically. Here green space refers to the open spaces which support sociocultural, health requirements and biodiversity preservation (Boone, 2008; Dickinson and Hobbs, 2017; Singh, 2018; Stanley, Stark et al., 2012; Van Herzele and Wiedemann, 2003). Green space intermingled with the next one, parks and gardens, where the needs of individuality for recreation and enjoyment are fulfilled (Alayón-Gamboa and Gurri-García, 2008; Rupprecht, Byrne et al., 2015; Sangwan, Saraswat et al., 2022; Swanwick, Dunnett et al., 2003). The use of Greenspace for recreation and leisure led to identifying its economic, cultural, environmental, and social values, which further increased its management and planning (Hegetschweiler, de Vries et al., 2017; Venter, Barton et al., 2021). Greenspace is described as any vegetated accessible land adjacent to the urban and rural area, including nature reserves, school playgrounds, national parks, bushland, outdoor sports fields, etc. (Abass, Afriyie et al., 2019; Chong, Lobb et al., 2013; Nguyen, Astell-Burt et al., 2021).

As per the literature review, in the urban context, Greenspace includes publicly accessible Greenspace that has been appropriately recognized, whereas green space comprises limited and controlled access. The term 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space' are interchangeably used in the literature, and no clear distinction shows the difference between these two terms. Various aspects of 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space' include ecological, health, socio-cultural-economic, and safety characteristic as follows. Under the ecological domain, 'Greenspace' means the space that provides benefits associated with a built-up environment, whereas 'Green space', apart from human benefits, also includes the protection of wildlife habitation and preservation of diversity, as shown in Figure 2 (a) and (b).

Figure 2. (a) Land Temperature effect of urban area (b) Jim Corbett National Park, Nanital

The health aspects of 'Greenspace' means how a human can enjoy a sound life with reduced stress and illness, whereas 'Green Space,' in addition to health benefits, includes a wide variety of herbs, vegetables, etc., which help the human growth and development in their overall growth and development, as shown in Figure 3 (c) and (d).

Figure 3. (a) Health benefits in greenspaces (b) Vegetables and herbal gardens

Whereas the sociocultural approach focuses on achieving social interaction and enhancing cultural life, whereas the 'Green space' indulges differences in temperature and winds, as shown in Figure 4 (c) and (d).

Figure 4. (c) and (d) Social Interaction in greenspaces

Furthermore, on the economic front, 'Greenspace' promotes tourism, provides healthy well-being and gets high real sell values for the property where 'Green Space' supports wildlife tourism, trading, and political and social function, as shown in Figure 5 (e) and (f). The safety aspect is the major and general concern in both terms related to the accessibility to 'Greenspace' or 'Green space.'

Figure 5. (e) Increasing Land Value of greenspace (f) Promoting Tourism in green space

Apart from the related aspects, the challenges with the interpretation of these terms create confusion and ambiguities, leading to the consequences. After the in-depth review of the literature available, the term 'Greenspace' may be coined as a formally designated space with open access to the public. Therefore, Greenspace can define as an area with vegetated public or semi-public lands such as parks, sports areas, cemeteries, vegetated areas of street and road corridors, natural and built corridors near the waterways, wetlands and other external areas to public buildings (Boulton, Dedekorkut-Howes et al., 2018; Haase, Pauleit et al., 2020; Nguyen, Astell-Burt et al., 2021). Literature review reveals that there is no universally accepted and common definition of Greenspace in health and medical sciences, ecological sciences, ecosystem, architecture, public health, and even in urban planning; it is amorphous.

Perspective on Greenspace and Greens Space

There could be two potential perspectives of Greenspace; first, Greenspace could include water bodies, vegetative areas, forests, wildlife areas, parks, gardens, zoological features, and farmland. This inclusion of land cover is a contrariety of either natural areas or urban (McIntyre, Knowles-Yánez et al., 2008). This broad coverage in greenspace definition may be questionable when the term is used in urban planning. Another viewpoint on Greenspace refers to the built-up environment portion of open space, which includes parks, yards, and gardens (Taylor and Hochuli, 2017). This comprehension defines human-centred land use that needs human interaction, planning, and continuation to be successful (Boominathan and Krishna Kumar, 2010).

Table 2. World wides usages of Greenspace from 2015 to 2019

Greenspace Typology	Study Area	Greenspace Definition
Greenspace - a range of vegetation, including trees, parks and forests (Wan and Shen, 2015)	Hong Kong	Greenspace covers parks, forests, recreational, and sports grounds. Open space covers urban greenspaces, vegetation, Greenspace, forests
The focus is on public parks, natural vegetation, private greenspaces restricted access greenery (Hashem, 2015)	Greater Doha	Greenspace includes public parks, private greenspaces, and natural vegetation. (Public green areas; urban greenspaces; Public Park; urban greenery; urban vegetation; green area)
Parks, an agricultural area, street trees, woodland and forest, grassland, golf - course, zoo and wildlife park, roadside green belts or areas (Grunewald, Richter et al., 2017)	Germany	Greenspaces refer to - public spaces that are public properties or species covered with vegetation in the responsibility of public jurisdictions (parks, allotments, areas for sports andplaying, woodlands and forests, street vegetation and street trees, cemeteries, vegetation around public buildings, areas of nature protection, brownfields, private gardens, urban agricultural areas, green walls and green roofs, as well as other open spaces)
Urban open space, paths, street trees, playfield tree canopy, and sidewalks (Lee, 2019)	Chicago	Greenspace is described as a - tool to promote health, economic value, social goal and environmental benefits for adjoining Neighbourhoods, both theoretically and practically. (Public Park, squares or plazas, regional parks, wastelands, urban parks, linear parks, playgrounds and playfields, civic places, green spaces)
Recreational UGS - Parks, Gardens, Playground, Lakes Open UGS – Rivers (S. Lahoti, A. Lahoti et al., 2019)	Nagpur, India	Greenspace is defined as public green areas shielded by vegetation and used for recreational purposes to serve the several needs of citizens to enhance the quality of life of the urban region. (UGS, parks, playground, accessible Green and public space, urban Green, green space)
Playground, recreational spaces, parks, and open spaces (Turaga, Jha-Thakur et al., 2020)	1. Gwalior 2. Bhagalpur 3. Chandigarh 4. Udaipur	Greenspaces include forests, parks, recreational and sports grounds, and community gardens. (UGS, open spaces, parks, accessible green space, green infrastructure)
Recreational UGS - Parks, Gardens, Playground, Lakes Open UGS – Rivers (S. Lahoti, A. Lahoti et al., 2019)	Nagpur, India	Greenspace is defined as public green areas shielded by vegetation and used for recreational purposes to serve the several needs of citizens to enhance the quality of life of the urban region. (UGS, parks, playground, accessible Green and public space, urban Green, green space)

The terms 'Greenspace' and 'Green Space' explain two distinct green areas defined by proximity and accessibility depending upon the objective and scope of research that differ from research to research (Labib, Lindley et al., 2020; Vanaken and Danckaerts, 2018). It has been observed that human intervention in maintaining Greenspace or green space is crucial for serving its intended purpose (Colley and Craig, 2019). The words 'Greenspace' and 'Green Space' have different theoretical and practical connotations for describing their planning, development strategy, usability, benefits, functionality, and inter-disciplinary relations. The term 'Greenspace' could be a designated space open to public access. However, 'Green Space' could be described as green space with controlled and limited access. Reviews reveal two major techniques to investigate the coverage of 'Greenspace' and 'Green Space.'The first explanation of human accessibility and proximity, and the second one is understanding government policies that distinguish these terms used worldwide. For this purpose, brief comparative usages are given in Table 2.

The character of 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space'

The word 'Greenspace' and 'Green Space' have different theoretical and practical connotations in urban planning, development strategy, usability, benefits, functionality, and inter-disciplinary relationship. Variations in the applied concept and terms of green space planning demonstrated that this diversity had not been deliberately discussed or prompted (Kabisch, Frantzeskaki et al., 2016; Mabon and Shih, 2018). Furthermore, the greenspaces also act as social interaction spaces, active recreational leading to health benefits, including mental benefits, thermal comfort such as reduction in heat island effect is added advantage, and ecological balance to some extent can be achieved through properly planned greenspaces (Kang, Aletta et al., 2016; Lotfi and Koohsari, 2009; Muñoz, 2009; Sangwan, Saraswat et al., 2022). Simultaneously, the places partly covered by vegetation, i.e., Green Space, remained neglected and not labelled with these aspects due to restricted direct public accessibility (Cilliers, Timmermans et al., 2015). The Greenspace is characterized by its multi-functional purposes due to effective and efficient planning, but in space-time, it is difficult to define and label the green spacses with different related aspects due to a lack of planning (Haase, Larondelle et al., 2014; Cilliers and Timmermans, 2013; Van Oijstaeijen, van Passel et al., 2020; Vásquez, Giannotti et al., 2019).

Table 3. Dichotomous character of "Greenspace" or "Green Space"

Attributes	Greenspace	Green Space
Meaning	Includes formally designated Greenspace, which is open to public access.	Includes actual green spaces which are having controlled and limited access.
Example	Parks, recreational areas, gardens, burial places, and green belt.	Farmland, grassland, golf course, privately owned green space, and historical sites.
Characteristic	This area predominantly represents Biotic characteristics (plants and Human beings)	This area predominantly represents abiotic characteristics (geographical, hydrological and Climatic characteristics) and biotic characteristics (flora and fauna)
Structure	confides within the defined boundaries.	These areas have limitless boundaries
Planning	These spaces reflect engineering/ architectural/ planning/ strategy through their design or layout.	These areas generally do not exhibit engineering/ architectural/ planning/ strategy in their design or layout.
Planning Policy Execution	Concerned authorities (ULBs etc.) execute planning and development through master plans and guidelines	The planning and development of these areas is governed by preservation and protection through laws.
Accessibility	Direct publicly accessible area.	Not direct publicly accessible area
Proximity	These areas lie in the vicinity of urban or rural forms.	These areas lie outside the vicinity of urban or rural forms
Multifunctionality	These spaces support health, recreational, social culture, and other related non-commercial purposes, while privately owned greenspaces usually support commercial activities.	These areas usually support commercial activities like agriculture activities, herbs and timber merchanting.

Therefore, a literature review reveals less of a dichotomy but more of synonymously and interchangeably terms' Greenspace' or 'Green Space' concerning different attributes in terms of meaning, characteristics, structure, planning, policy execution, accessibility, proximity, and multi-functionality. Furthermore, based on the above qualities, the dichotomous characteristic of 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space' has been differentiated only to understand the terms better to be applied wherever required, as given in Table 3 above.

The aspects related to humans and 'Greenspace' and 'Green Space.'

Gross domestic product has a direct relationship with an increase in urbanization as urbanization means more job opportunities in sectors like industries, trade and commerce etc. This ultimately results in creating more stress on Greenspaces which are available within an urban area. Planned Greenspace is basically termed green areas and spaces, whereas the naturally available Greenspace has been termed green space. It also demonstrated how the nature of the built environment impacts people's greenspace usage (Lachowycz and Jones, 2013; Swanwick, Dunnett et al., 2003). With the intrusion of human beings into 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space,' several aspects like ecology, health, sociocultural and economy are found to be affected (Bedimo-Rung et al., 2005; Coen and Ross, 2006; Hausmann, Slotow et al., 2016; Niemelä, 2014; Shih, 2017; Turaga, Jha-Thakur et al., 2020; Tzoulas, Korpela et al., 2007). Apart from intrusion, many safety concerns are linked with different groups of the community w.r.t to accessibility to Greenspaces. The different groups within the community include children, old people, physically challenged people, etc., among these groups, especially women at a higher risk (Enssle and Kabisch, 2020; Thompson, Aspinall et al., 2008).

The human intrusions in 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space' pose a challenge due to which these units are unable to serve their intended purpose to the full. These human and 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space' related aspects are summarised in Table 4. 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space' have an interconnection with the liveability index of human beings and, hence, directly impacts health, safety, and socio-economic effect.

Table 4. Human and "Greenspace" and "Green Space" related aspects

Aspects	Greenspace	Green Space
Ecological	Different direct accessibility greenspace typologies provide many ecological benefits such as ambient temperature, air and noise pollution reduction, water harvesting, and act as a barrier between pavement and locality.	Apart from human benefits, Green space also protects wildlife habitation and preserves biodiversity.
Health	People with better access to Greenspace have a greater life expectancy, less stress, less illness, and are less likely to be obese.	Green Space provides indirect health benefits instead of direct benefits. These green spaces provide a wide variety of herbs, vegetables, cereals, fruits, etc., supporting human health.
Socio-cultural	It gives impetus to social interaction amongst people and enhances cultural life by providing opportunities for festivals, fairs, civic celebrations, etc.	These green spaces act as temperature buffers and windbreakers. (biodiversity)
Economic	Flourished greenspaces promote tourism and health wellness product vending and fetch high real sale values for the properties near parks and greenways.	These spaces support timber merchanting, herb and agricultural products trading, eco, and Political or social function organized at public-owned green.
Safety	The safety concerns of different age groups and abilities of a community, such as children, old age people, physically challenged people, etc., in terms of accessibility and usability.	Due to safety concerns, the accessibility and usability of these spaces are restrictive because of sensibilities.

Recent planning guidelines and cases related to the Indian Context

Due to the nebulous character of greenspaces, professional planning practices mirrors planning ambiguities. Addressing "greenspaces" in Indian regulatory documents like bye-laws, planning standards and policy guidelines and township development policies and rules ensures the provision of Greenspace in India. But, the term is missing and unclear and has been associated with open space, recreational space, forests, green areas or eco-sensitive zones (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015). Further, the legislative documents do not represent the notation of the term "Greenspace".

Per capita or percentage of the total developed area is the basis for the provisions of land area to be covered in recreational spaces, forests, eco-sensitive zones, green areas etc. As per UDPFI (1996), 15 % of total developed land should be open space which was later specified as 10 -12 sqm per person as desirable in modified URDPFI (2014) (Sangwan, Saraswat et al., 2022). UDPFI (1996), in terms of hierarchy, was limited to parks, playgrounds, and water bodies from housing clusters to the sub-city centre level. Whereas in URDPFI (2014), open spaces as a recreational category are further classified into recreational areas (P1 - parks/stadiums/ sports complex, P2 – Gardens, P3 – multipurpose open spaces) and organized greens (parks up to sub-city level). Both documents fail to give clear-cut categorization or specified standards for greenspaces.

In the planning and development process for incorporating urban greens into planning and development, TCPO released Guide on Plant Materials for Landscaping in India in 1980. Later in 2000, the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment published the guidelines for greening Urban Areas and Landscaping. Further, the above documents were thoroughly referred to in preparing Urban Greening Guidelines, 2014, which explains the greenspace typologies but fails to clarify the standardized categorization.

Figure 6. Recent Indian Planning Cases

WHO's Millennium development goals (2000) were replaced with the UN.'s Sustainable Development Goal in 2015. SDG 11.7 calls for universal access to secure, inclusive, and accessible green and public spaces but doesn't define them. As a result, in 2015, one of the thrust areas of AMRUT mission was to create and upgrade green space; parks and recreational centres failed to explain or define the provision bases for these spaces. Consequently, other planning initiatives or programs and indices like smart city mission, livability index etc., have provisions for open spaces (greenspaces) but tend to fail to explain their detailed character.

Due to the synonymous nature of UGS, Indian cities have defined the provision in their respective Master plans under the open and recreational spaces, parks, green areas, forests, etc., as shown in Figure 6. In addition, terminologies are utilized differently in various regions (zones) of India. In contrast, greenspace provisions in different cities of the same state vary and do not provide a true depiction of greenspaces per capita. In contrast to the Indian context, international studies have classified and developed the typology of UGS based on their applications and functions (Sangwan, Saraswat et al., 2022).

Result and Discussion

Based on the literature review, the challenges and consequences associated with the interpretation of the terms Greenspace' or 'Green Space' among researchers are discussed below.

Challenges with the interpretation of 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space.'

First of all, when someone mentions 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space,' it doesn't clearly understand the context. Different stakeholders associated with 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space' concerning their discipline may have different notions. Different town and country planning agencies, like the Town and country planning organization (TCPO), etc. have published the standards and guidelines regarding the green space per capita, but this creates ambiguity among individuals as the challenge concerning the per capita availability of which type of 'Greenspace' or 'Green space.' People residing in unplanned and under-developed areas will fulfill the requirements of accessibility to green space. Lastly, as discussed earlier, 'Greenspace' provides direct access. It is located the proximal distance of the user's residence, while the 'Green Space,' despite having more green coverage, neither provides direct access nor is situated near a developed society.

Consequences of human intrusions in 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space.'

In earlier times, due to the absence of development guidelines and standards, human beings started colonization without giving any attention to the provisions of green space around the built areas (Mu, Liu et al., 2020). Due to underestimating these areas, unplanned areas are now facing the scarcity of green space within the proximal distance of users' residency. It poses a challenge in front of development authorities regarding the provision of Greenspace in already developed, highly dense areas without any possibility of demolition or alteration in the existing settlements (C. Xu, Haase et al., 2018; X. Xu, Duan et al., 2011). The negative impact of urbanization and industrialization on green spaces is the alteration of vegetated areas with building infrastructure, resulting in the depletion of green space availability. As a consequence, it results in increased air pollution, heat island effect, and health-related issues (Arshad, Ahmad et al., 2022; Gavrilidis, Niță et al., 2019; Ramaiah and Avtar, 2019). Apart from very well-known recreational sites like parks, green pockets, etc. (Chaudhry, Bagra et al., 2011), human beings have started considering protected land areas like national parks and wildlife sanctuaries as new recreational destinations. Human intervention has disrupted existing components of the ecosystem and the factors that rely on it, and locating new recreational spots. To overcome these negative consequences of the unplanned development, Master Planning came up with a provision of a dedicated green space and related policies for the upcoming development.

Challenges in the implication of 'Greenspace' or 'Green Space.' while planning in India

The city planning legislative and regulatory framework does not specify "Greenspace". URDPFI is the only document being followed for city planning countrywide which focuses on Recreational spaces only and does not specify the notation of Greenspaces (S. Lahoti, A. Lahoti et al., 2020; Rao and Puntambekar, 2014). In the Indian Context, the problem remains that the term "Greenspaces" is not used in official documents (Coen and Ross, 2006; Derkzen, van Teeffelen et al., 2017; S. Lahoti, A. Lahoti et al., 2019). However, the term 'Recreational/ Open Spaces" is used to define Open spaces, Green areas, Parks and playgrounds etc. Further, there are references in different building Byelaws and layout approval rules for the provision of parks or plantation belts within plots/layouts. Other documents like NBC, SDGs, AMRUT guidelines and other indices mentioned greenspaces but for specific purposes. The major lacunae in the bylaws, township development policies and rules are that there is no clear-cut categorization of green spaces and provision standards. Addressing real-time problems like the execution of green initiatives tends to fall back due to multiple notations of Greenspace. Planning policies and standards interpretation of greenspaces clash with those of various goals and missions, creating hundreds and leading to insufficient implementation. Hence this study is carried out to figure out the interchangeability of these terms, which can further help in planning and developing Indian regions. With clear interpretation and the amorphous nature of terminologies, "Greenspaces" could be categorized, and a working definition can be worked out and assigned the important value in terms of its use.

Conclusion

Urban green spaces have become important factors in the well-being of human society. Green spaces include natural features in the environment, but this term differs from 'Open space.' Because of their similar meanings but different contexts, there are some ambiguities in using the terms 'Greenspace' and 'Green Space.' As there is variation in the understanding and definition of "Greenspaces", it is important to identify and categorize them, and then only their impact can be assessed, and urban planning standards and policies can be revised. This was the motivation for conducting a study to determine the precise distinction between these two terminologies and how they affect decision-making. This study shows that the master planning process in India should adopt the term 'Greenspace' for formulating planning-related policies and design frameworks. The master plan of any city should incorporate dedicated Greenspace provisions concerning accessibility and proximity. Different groups of a community, such as children, the elderly, and especially the abled, will have accessibility to the same without any safety concerns. Further, it is recommended that the natural flora and fauna of the country should not be disturbed at the expense of increased air, water, and noise pollution. Human encroachment on the natural habitat should be at a minimal level.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.S., methodology, A.S.; software, A.S. investigation, A.S.; resources, N.K. and A.K; data curation, A.S.; writing—original draft preparation, A.S., writing—review and editing, A.S.; supervision, N.K. and A.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Ethics Declaration

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of the paper.

Acknowledgments

The author(s) are thankful for the editor-in-chief and two anonymous reviewers for providing their constructive feedback, which helps to improve the quality of the paper.

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