Abstract: The health benefits of urban green space are based on the occurrence of recreation behaviors. Recreation potential, a product of the interaction between green space features and the observer’s psychological processes, plays an important role in the occurrence of recreation behaviors. We analyzed the landscape characteristics of 11 key park areas in Beijing Olympic Forest Park using remote sensing data. Based on the questionnaire survey of 997 visitors, we analyzed the recreation potential of the key park areas in terms of exercise suitability and scenic beauty, and ranked these areas using a combined recreation index integrating the two aspects. The relationship between landscape characteristics and recreation potential was explored. Our results showed that certain landscape indicators can potentially assist the study of recreation potential. For example, the area of deciduous forest, edge density, patch dispersion, and shape index showed different degrees of positive correlation with the recreation potential, while the area of man-made buildings and patch evenness negatively correlated with recreation potential. All the 11 key park areas showed similar graded characteristics in the ranking of exercise suitability and scenic beauty, reflecting a balanced creation of scenic-based and exercise-based recreation potentials. The study also investigated a combined recreation potential index with sub-dimensional aspects. Our study contributes to the understanding of the mechanism underlying the generation of recreation benefits in urban green space, and offers guiding implications for landscape design of urban green space.

Key words: urban park, landscape pattern, recreation potential, culture service.