Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 55 (2020) 126820 Available online 22 August 2020 1618-8667/© 2020 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. Equality in access to urban green spaces: A case study in Hannover, Germany, with a focus on the elderly population Chen Wen a, b, *, Christian Albert b, c , Christina Von Haaren b a School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Luoyu Road, 430074, Wuhan, China b Leibniz University Hannover, Institute of Environmental Planning, Herrenh¨ auser Str. 2, 30419 Hannover, Germany c Ruhr University Bochum, Institute of Geography, Universitaetsstr. 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany A R T I C L E INFO Handling Editor: N Nadja Kabisch Keywords: Urban green and blue infrastructure Provision Inequality Access Population aging Landscape design Equity ABSTRACT Although assessing green space provisions is essential to understand environmental justice, few studies have focused on the age perspective and the inequality in access regarding elderly people. This study aims at un- derstanding the spatial disparity in access to urban green and blue infrastructure (UGBI), with a special focus on the elderly. An enhanced “2SFCA” approach was applied to measure the per capita UGBI area by considering different vegetation types and water elements, natural attractiveness, street network, and the many-to-many relationship between the supply and demand locations. Using a case study in Hannover, Germany, this study applied two different “assumptions” of distance thresholds (the near proximity assumption and the far proximity assumption) of UGBI. Our case study showed that in Hannover, elderly people are generally not disadvantaged in their access to UGBI compared with other age groups, but that the degree of accessibility differs between neighborhoods considered. The study also showed that access limitations can be partly compensated by increasing the mobility of the elderly so that they can reach high quality green spaces located farther away. The findings recommend key locations for allocating green spaces and improving the connection between residential areas and UGBI. 1. Introduction As a growing consensus of environmental justice, planning and managing urban green spaces should better take into account different demographic groups’ need for access to nature-based recreation (NBR) (Rigolon, 2017; Wolch et al., 2014). A considerable body of literature has provided evidence that having leisure activities in green spaces may promote physical activity, mental health, and social contacts (Kaczynski et al., 2010; Tetley and Mountain, 2006; Ward Thompson and Aspinall, 2011; Yung, Winky, & Chan, 2017). Therefore, investigating accessi- bility to urban green spaces plays a vital role in understanding whether vulnerable groups are deprived of public amenities provided by nature (Rigolon, 2017, 2016; Wolch et al., 2014). Traditionally, relevant research has confirmed the spatial disparity in green space accessibility regarding people’s socioeconomic or ethnic status (Dai, 2011; Heckert, 2013; Hoffimann et al., 2017; Xiao et al., 2017). Recently, an increasing number of studies have explored accessibility to green spaces from an age perspective (Kabisch and Haase, 2014; Rigolon, 2017). Regarding the elderly group, which is often defined as people aged over 65 according to censuses in many countries, studies have often revealed that they are less physically active and have less access to NBR than younger groups (Lee and Maheswaran, 2011; Milanovi´c et al., 2013; Payne et al., 2002; Pleson et al., 2014). For instance, a study in Berlin measured the value of per capita green space and its distributive equality regarding different social groups, including elderly people (Kabisch and Haase, 2014). The researchers found that, although most residents meet the criterion of having access to at least 6 m 2 of green space per person, elderly people seem to be less present in the studied green sites due to the lack of infrastructure, shade, and diverse naturalness. Therefore, exploring elderly people’s access to NBR should consider a variety of special factors. These factors may include the distribution of parks or green spaces, the distance between the greenery and elderly people’s homes, the cultural aspects and aesthetic preferences, the infrastructure, and the elderly’s mental status (for de- tails see the EU-funded project ‘ENABLE’ by BiodivERsA and other relevant studies) (Gong et al., 2014; Kamphuis et al., 2009; Kemperman and Timmermans, 2014; Ward Thompson and Aspinall, 2011). Few studies have explored the special factors for elderly people in * Corresponding author at: School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Luoyu Road, 430074, Wuhan, China. E-mail addresses: wen@umwelt.uni-hannover.de (C. Wen), christian.albert@rub.de (C. Albert), haaren@umwelt.uni-hannover.de (C. Von Haaren). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Urban Forestry & Urban Greening journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ufug https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2020.126820 Received 23 June 2019; Received in revised form 27 July 2020; Accepted 18 August 2020