ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Spatial Assessment of Green Spaces at Educational Facilities in Olsztyn (Poland): Their Potential to Support Student Well-Being
1
Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Olsztyn, Poland
2
Bioeconomy Research Institute, Vytautas Magnus University Agriculture Academy, Kaunas, Lithuania
3
Institute of Environmental Engineering, University of Zielona Góra, Zielona Góra, Poland
Submission date: 2026-08-23
Final revision date: 2026-09-15
Acceptance date: 2026-09-19
Online publication date: 2026-09-22
Publication date: 2026-09-22
Corresponding author
Agnieszka Jaszczak
Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Prawocheńskiego 17, 10-719, Olsztyn, Poland
Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Prawocheńskiego 17, 10-719, Olsztyn, Poland
Civil and Environmental Engineering Reports 2026;36(3):130-145
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
School grounds are among the most intensively used everyday environments of children and adolescents, yet their vegetation is rarely evaluated in terms of its capacity to support users’ well-being. This study assesses the structure, quality and functionality of green spaces at ten primary and secondary schools in Olsztyn (north-eastern Poland) using exclusively open geospatial data: Sentinel-2 NDVI summer composites, high-resolution canopy height models, Landsat-derived land surface temperature, OpenStreetMap, the national BDOT10k topographic database and orthophotomaps. Four indicator groups: green area share, tree canopy cover, vegetation structure and neighbourhood greenness, complemented by a checklist of nature-contact elements, were aggregated into a novel School Green Well-Being Potential Index (SGWPI), while land surface temperature served as an independent validation criterion. The results reveal substantial differentiation of school green spaces across the city (SGWPI 32.5–76.8): no school reaches 30% tree canopy cover on its grounds, summer surface temperatures of school grounds span 5.6°C and are governed by the canopy of the 100 m surroundings rather than of the parcels themselves, and primary schools score systematically lower than secondary schools. The proposed remote-sensing workflow is fully reproducible and transferable to other medium-sized cities.
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