How Green Are the Streets Within the Sixth Ring Road of Beijing? An Analysis Based on Tencent Street View Pictures and the Green View Index.

Street greenery, an important urban landscape component, is closely related to people’s physical and mental health. This study employs the green view index (GVI) as a quantitative indicator to evaluate visual greenery from a pedestrian’s perspective and uses an image segmentation method to calculate the quantity of visual greenery from Tencent street view pictures. This article aims to quantify street greenery in the area within the sixth ring road in Beijing, analyse the relations between road parameters and the GVI, and compare the visual greenery of different road types. The authors find that (1) the average GVI value in the study area is low, with low-value clusters inside the third ring road and high-value clusters outside; (2) wider minor roads tend to have higher GVI values than motorways, major roads and provincial roads; and (3) longer roads, except expressways, tend to have higher GVI values. This case study demonstrates that the GVI can effectively represent the quantity of visual greenery along roads. The authors’ methods can be employed to compare street-level visual greenery among different areas or road types and to support urban green space planning and management.