A Qualitative Urban Green Spaces Assessment for a Sustainable Management, Case Study of Sousse City (Tunisia)

The quality of the urban green spaces (UGS) plays a crucial role on human health, hence there is an importance of creating a quality assessment tool. After examining UGS as a vital component of the urban ecosystem, we developed a UGS QT, an evaluation tool, based on a set of criteria and indicators chosen after bibliographical research and exchanges with professionals. The weighting of the criteria is 1 for a desirable criterion, 2 for a necessary criterion, and 3 for an indispensable criterion. The evaluation tool includes 64 items divided into 25 indicators encompassing eight criteria, namely environmental regulating capacity, ecological balances, functional amenities, esthetic amenities, landscape aspects, integrity in its environment, development policy, and space drawbacks. We assessed the quality of UGS of the boulevards Yahya Ibn Oumar and Mohammed Maarouf, namely Beb Eljabli’s garden, Beb Elfinga’s garden, and Beb Elgharbi’s garden, respectively, covering an area of 8230, 3950, and 6824 m2. The findings show that Beb Eljabli’s garden fulfills its environmental regulation, ecological balance, esthetic functions, and development policy. It is still integrated into the environment, but with far fewer landscape and functional design criteria. When comparing the gardens of Beb Elfinga and Beb Elgharbi, the latter responds much better to landscape, esthetically pleasing, and functional criteria. We can conclude that the Ramparts’ gardens have good quality, but certain elements may be improved. The tool used in Sousse can be applied to other Tunisian cities as well as cities in developed countries experiencing UGS depletion.