ABSTRACT
Landscaped parks and open spaces in (sub)urban areas vary greatly in structure, extent, functions, history and management. They range from highly formal, carefully managed areas where access by people often is restricted, to parks that are largely sports grounds, or parks that are basically remnants of common land, woodland or open space. The character of urban parks also reflects their history, and thus also the ideas of their planners and designers, some of whom deliberately laid out formal areas or planted exotic species in a formal manner. They usually owe their societal importance to their location, close to densely populated areas. For people, parks and open spaces are oases of green, tranquility, relaxation and pleasure. Their size, which usually is a proxy for their habitat heterogeneity, makes them an essential component of urban green structure. They usually contain a considerable number of trees, but elements such as lawns, pastures, ponds, garden elements and related infrastructure are more dominant, while forest stands are often limited or even absent. So habitat variety often is high. Life forms range from the visually dominant trees to invertebrates and fungi. Plant and animal life are a mixture of naturally occurring and deliberately introduced species; an assemblage that changes in space and time. All this makes parks complex ecosystems that are difficult to comprehend, even more difficult to manage in an optimal way and to treat in a concise way as is the goal of this chapter.
