Structural Analysis of Affecting Factors for Future Development of Green Spaces in Tabriz City

This paper attempts to analyze factors involved in the development of urban green spaces with a systematic and structural approach and extract the most important factors for the optimal development of urban green spaces using relationships between these factors. This applied study was conducted using a descriptive analytical method, which attempted to present solutions to structural development of green spaces in Tabriz City as a case study. This study’s findings can be generalized on cities with same condition. Thus, in order to achieve this goal, all factors involved in the development of green spaces have been initially extracted using Delphi method. Then, analysis of factors that have been extracted from MICMAC, relevance of factors involved in the development of green spaces in the city of Tabriz have been analyzed and finally key factors were determined. Eleven factors have identified as key factors that have important role in development of optimal green spaces in Tabriz city.


Introduction
Urban green spaces are nature survivors in cities, which suffer from qualitative and quantitative changes as a result of improper urban developments.Moreover, these developments are associated with many ecological, economic and social effects (Jim, 2008).With the increasing city's depletion of the irreparable capital of natural elements as well as due to increasing destruction of green spaces and eventually quality degradation and natural performance of cities' ecosystems, ecologists have found that to solve real problems of today's world, it is essential to focus on perspectives of man dominance, which often include urban perspectives (Johnson and Hill, 2002).Presence of nature in the form of natural, open and green lands in cities should benefit from necessary physical relevance with spatial extent, composition and distribution and must be interwoven with city in such a way that they are inseparable from each other in optimal conditions, and in fact it covers cities (Tjallingi, 2003).
Importance of urban green spaces is widely recognized in all societies in social performance, biodiversity conservation and other ecological processes for eco-friendly development.Increasingly, former urban planning methods paid less insufficient attention to environment and environment surrounding cities, which led to much criticism (Gomez & Salvador, 2006).To confirm multiple roles of green spaces, a certain level of quality development and distribution of green spaces in urban areas should be considered, which is considered part of environmental sustainability agenda.Achieving this goal requires an integrated approach and a structure in relation to planning, monitoring, design and protecting urban green spaces to improve environmental sustainability in cities (Md & Haq, 2011).Today, green space planning has become a priority in urban planning and requires an integrated approach to achieving sustainable urban environment (Waldheim, 2006).In urbanization processes, natural features such as vegetation and natural soil are replaced with building materials for constructing residential areas, commercial buildings, roads and parking lots, to the extent that today , there is no optimal balance between green space area and open areas between urban networks and land natural patterns (Thaiutsa et al., 2008).Results of studies on land use changes from 1976 to 2006 in the city of Tabriz indicate that during 30 years, area of 6970.99 hectares has been allocated to construction, a total of 1542.57h of which was constructed on city's green spaces and orchards.Actually During this period, 26.07% of this use type was destroyed in the city of Tabriz and was turned into profitable uses (Rahimi, 2013).During this period, green space per capita of about 14 square meters reached to 7.5 square meters (Beheshti roy, 2012).Also, over a period of 10 years (from 2001 to 2011), green spaces and orchards with an area of 165 hectares, approved by Article 5 of intracity texture change have been repurposed to other land uses such as housing, roads, sports, etc (Rahimi, 2013).Process of dealing with urban green spaces from earlier times indicates that if this trend continues, destruction and use changes of green spaces, orchards and farmlands will lead to a terrible threat to sustainable development and thereby unbalancing ecological system in Tabriz (and perhaps at the regional level).With regards to increasing population's demand for urban lands, some ecological and environmental functions move towards proportionating quality of life for human populations (Li, 2004).Therefore, in urbanization processes, natural features such as vegetation and natural soils will be replaced with building materials for construction of residential areas, commercial buildings, roads and parking lots, to the extent that today there is no optimal balance between green space surface and open areas between urban networks and natural patterns (Thaiutsa, 2008).Moreover, urban networks are dominating ecological networks, which in itself lead to a ground for loss of green spaces within the city and use change of such lands, which may lead to global environmental problems such as formation of urban heat islands.
In mean time, green spaces play a significant role in supporting urban social and ecological systems (Barbosa et al., 2007).Therefore, special attention must be paid to the promotion of ecological green spaces in order to improve their productivity, because within cities, valuable ecological elements are increasingly reduced (Zangiabadi & Rakhshani nasab, 2009).Accordingly, experts believe that one of the main ways to deal with urbanization problems is to strengthen relationship between urban people with nature (Shahivandi, 2006).Today, cities require particular attention in terms of restoration of urban nature.Because presence of nature in necessary and sufficient size, composition and distribution in cities is considered one of sustainable development requirements ,which is very important to improving quality of life in urban areas and makes these areas sustainable ecologically (Alizadeh & Salehifard, 2008).Based on structural and functional relationship principle, correlations between structural components and natural issues are modified when presence of components and relationship between main components has proper spatial structure in the context (Forman & Godron, 1986).
Structural analysis is one of the most used tools in futures studies.Structural analysis experienced since the middle of the 1980's an increasing number of application in various domains, within business as well as on society related topics (Arcade and et al., 2003).In long term view, decision makers need to justifiable anticipation for the major drivers that may effect on their domain key variables (Omran, Khorish, & Saleh, 2014).Therefore, this paper indicates the structural analysis for identifying the key factors in future development of Tabriz City's green spaces by answering to following question: Which variables involved in development of green space of Tabriz city?And which of them has more influence on development of green space?

Methodology
Structural analysis seeks to identify key variables (overt and covert) in order to get feedbacks and encourage participants and beneficiaries on aspects and complex and unpredictable behavior of the system.Structural analysis method is a tool for linking ideas and thoughts, which operates through correlation matrix of all system variables.This model is able to identify relationships between variables and eventually identify key variables affecting the system evolution.Structural analysis methods is among methods, which analyzes the relationships between variables and different components of a system and its output is effective in investigating relationships between variables and identifying their characteristics (Rabani, 2012).In this research, variables involved in the future development of green spaces in City of Tabriz are estimated using Delphi method.Then, structure of green spaces development in the city of Tabriz was analyzed using MICMAC software and key factors were extracted.It is worth mentioning that prediction method of "MICMAC" was invented by Michael Godet.He summarized the prediction method in the following steps: Step 1: Evaluation of variables The first phase includes a review of all variables detected within the intended system (internal and external variables); It should be noted that all variables are taken into account comprehensively.Use of experts' views helps expand set of variables and consider all potential actors in the intended system.

Step 2: Investigation of correlation between variables
In a structural analysis, there is possible of correlating between variables in a two-row table (direct correlation).Correlation degree of two variables is shown quantitatively.0 means that there is no correlation between two variables and the amount of effect of variables can also be shown with corresponding numbers (0 = no correlation1 = poor correlation, 2 = moderate correlation, 3 = strong correlation).At this stage, we will face variable N and N × N questions (almost 5,000 questions for 70 variables), some of which will be discarded  ass.ccsenet.

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Opinio
In this stu Delphi me selected.I professors persons re of Tabriz general fac as primary   Source: compiled by author

General Analysis of System Environment
According to Delphi method mentioned above, a total of 51 variables in 6 areas were identified as factors affecting future development of ecological green space of Tabriz metropolitan and were studied and analyzed using cross-impact and structural analysis by MICMAC Software to extract main factors affecting future status of green spaces.Based on number of variables, a matrix with dimensions of 51 x 51 is used.By placing these factors in a 51x51 matrix, effect of each of these factors on each other was identified by weighting factors (from 0 to 3).All factors involved in planning of urban green spaces are considered as a system with intertwined elements and in the form of one structure and the relationship between these factors is measured so as to extract superior factors with higher effects.The number of repeated interaction between variables was considered two times and the matrix filling degree was 35.60 %, which shows dispersion of variables affecting development of ecological green spaces in Tabriz.
From a total of 890 evaluable relationships in this matrix, 1610 relationships are zero, 444 relationships are 1, 194 relationships are 2 and 252 relationships are 3. Also, the matrix had utility and optimization of 100% based on statistical indicators with two-time data rotations, which indicated a high validity of the questionnaire and its responses.In the following section, to analyze overall system environment and finally to identify key factors, affectability plans of variables as well as rating and displacement degree of variables are investigated.

Displacement Degree of Factors in Case of Direct and Indirect Effects of Variables
The following diagram shows displacement degree of factors in case of direct and indirect effects of variables.As the diagram shows, the displacement degree had not much impact on changing the position of factors.ass.ccsenet.

Conclusion
According to studies, following accelerating construction process in Tabriz metropolitan, especially in recent decades, the city suffered from severe damage in terms of ecologically important elements, particularly regarding green spaces and has lost these valuable spaces day by day to the of economic gains(in terms of urban planning and urban physical development).
To resolve shortage of natural green spaces in cities, having a systematic and structured approach to the development of urban green spaces for present and future are necessary for proper planning for such spaces.Tabriz city with a high population density as well as having an increased density of housing and a variety of industrial and municipal facilities and equipment; requires a qualitative and quantitative improvement of urban green spaces in line with increasing ecological and social functions of these spaces.
In this study, using Delphi method after opinion polling relevant experts in the planning of urban green spaces, factors and variables involved in the development of green spaces were extracted and then driving and key factors for the future development of green spaces were specified after weighting, according to experts in MICMAC software.
Structural planning for the future development of urban green spaces, all factors involved in the planning of green spaces are considered like a system with intertwined elements and in the form of a structure.Moreover, associations between these factors are evaluated and factors with higher effect are extracted.These superior are used to plan the development of green areas so that ecological structure of urban green spaces bring sustainable development for the city in the best In order to achieve this goal, all components of natural, socio -cultural, ecological, economic, physical and urban landscape factors are involved as a system.Finally, eleven factors; "managerial and institutional, proper locating for ecological development of green spaces, provision of sustainable water resources, maintenance and protection of green spaces, proper access for all citizens, Green space continuity, restoration of barren lands, dense planting, biodiversity, Beautification and design of green spaces" were determined among key factors for the future development of green spaces in Tabriz City and structural development of urban green spaces for present and future requires taking into account these key factors are in the planning process.If these key factors are coherently and systematically planned for the future development of green spaces in the city of Tabriz, they will help to creating perfect green spaces and substantially reduce environmental problems and consequently social and psychological problems in the city of Tabriz.
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