Lots for greening: Identification of metropolitan vacant land and its potential use for cooling and agriculture in Phoenix, Arizona, USA

This project provides the first systematic assessment of non-governmental vacant parcels for potential greening (VPPG) the Phoenix metropolitan area—land parcels that are or can be privately owned but which contain no buildings, are unpaved, have no apparent use, and are potential candidates for urban greening. To achieve the data, a new method for the identification of vacant lands was employed that combines remote sensing techniques and cadastral data and trains the computer to distinguish different forms of vacant land. The classification result proved to be an effective approach for open land identification and identified approximately 19500 ha of open land in the metro area. The model achieved an average accuracy of 90.67%. This dataset only includes VPPG and does not include other vacant land determined to be inappropriate for potential greening (developed/abandoned or impervious surface). (Overall accuracy for all classes was 87.20%).