**Author details**

*Landscape Architecture - Processes and Practices Towards Sustainable Development*

**Case studies Population (thousands)**

Stockholm 1030 1210 1360 2615 Madrid 4940 5320 6380 6586 Rome 3750 3710 3960 4468 Paris 2150 2130 2240 12,524 London 6800 7240 8600 14,855 Berlin 3200 3500 3450 4314 Lisbon 2540 2690 2790 2810

**1990 2000 2010 2015**

Through the present study, it is possible to understand how the green urban areas have evolved within the studied European major cities. Besides, throughout the analysis of patterns of the land use change (CLC 141) along with empirical knowledge of those cities' territories, it was allowed us to assess the value of those Green Urban Areas within the cities. Therefore, it is possible to say that those green urban areas are not growing in the same pace as the demographic values as well as

In this regard, and considering the relevance of the ES performed in the urban environments, we believe that in all the analyzed cities, the existing green urban areas are not able to provide the environmental needs for their inhabitants. In fact, even if those environmental needs could differ among the studied cities – once, some presents a higher number of Green Urban Areas than others as well as different demographic growth rates; all the analyzed European Major Cities shows a need

Additionally, the performed study enabled us to put forward some noteworthy ideas, related to the relevance of green space infrastructure in urban areas, regardless of their urban nature and of their major land use, which corroborate with the conclusions of previous studies that crossed the relevance of urban green spaces to

In this regard, the creation of more green urban areas in these cities as well as in their metropolitan influential territories is seen as pivotal. Furthermore, guidelines should be provided for the main actors and decision-makers of the planning process to where the efforts toward a sustainable development and growth should be placed—for example to address green strategies and land use reconversion and

other land uses in development within these cities [24].

urban sustainability and development [4, 9–10, 25–32].

**116**

**4. Final remarks**

*Demographic dynamics of the studied cities [23].*

**Table 3.**

for more Green Urban Areas.

redevelopment of urban areas.

Rui Alexandre Castanho1,2,3,4,5\*, José Cabezas2,4, José Manuel Naranjo Gómez3,4,6, José Martín Gallardo7 , Luis Fernández-Pozo2,4, Sema Yilmaz Genç8 , Sérgio Lousada3,4,9 and Luís Loures4,10

1 Faculty of Applied Sciences, WSB University, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Poland

2 Environmental Resources Analysis Research Group (ARAM), University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

3 CITUR - Madeira - Centre for Tourism Research, Development and Innovation, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

4 VALORIZA - Research Centre for Endogenous Resource Valorization, Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (IPP), Portalegre, Portugal

5 School of Business and Economics and CEEAplA, University of Azores, Ponta Delgada, Portugal

6 Agricultural School, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

7 Functional Studies of Mediterranean Ecosystems, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

8 Department of Marketing and Advertising, Kocaeli University, Turkey

9 Faculty of Exact Sciences and Engineering (FCEE), Department of Civil Engineering and Geology (DECG), University of Madeira (UMa), Funchal, Portugal

10 Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being (CinTurs), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal

\*Address all correspondence to: alexdiazbrown@gmail.com; acastanho@wsb.edu.pl

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
