Modeling the Cost of Green Space Investment in Residential Areas in Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania

Abstract

Understanding the costs of development, maintenance and replacement of green spaces may help in effective planning and development of green spaces. However, traditional methods to ascertain the costs of the same are complex and requires many data and expertise. The objective of study was to develop a mathematical model for estimating the cost of green space investment in residential areas of Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania using structured questionnaires for data collection. The study revealed that the investment cost of green spaces was influenced by income of the households, age of green space, area covered by green space, green space type and settlement where the household resides. The mean calculated from the model looked lower by 0.1% implying that the model can best predict the overall mean of investment cost by 99.9%. The model can be used to estimate the economic value of green spaces in data scarce situations for various purposes like compensation and property valuation.