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Urban parks are an important part of urban ecosystems and also provide recreational services for urban residents. However, it is still unclear how the recreational attractiveness of urban parks can be evaluated. In this study, 12 typical parks in Changchun, China were selected for evaluation of their recreational attractiveness. We built a recreational attractiveness evaluation system based on the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to produce a composite evaluation index. This method included: 1) the landscape quality of the parks; 2) the recreational facilities; 3) the conditions of the area; and 4) the accessibility of the parks. Our results showed that Nanhu Park, Children's Park, Shengli Park, and Jingyuetan Forest Park had high recreational attractiveness, whereas Linyuan Park had the lowest attractiveness among the 12 parks. These results agreed with the information obtained from a field survey of the actual recreational and revisit rates, which showed that the evaluation index is reliable. Correlation analysis showed that the landscape quality and recreational facilities of parks had a direct effect on their recreational attractiveness. A negative correlation was found between the accessibility of a park and its recreational attractiveness. We conclude that if the scenery and facilities are not as good as a visitor expects, then they may choose to visit a different park, even if it takes a longer time to reach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Urban soil pH of urban forests increased with an increasing level of urbanization (p < 0.001). • The impervious surface coverage (TISC) is the main influencing factor that has both direct (TISC-pH) and indirect effects (TISC-BD-SWC-EC-pH chain) on urban forest soil alkalization. • Urbanization possibly leads to soil alkalization which is contrary to natural ecosystems. Soil pH in natural ecosystems is experiencing outstanding changes because of acid deposition, especially in the background of global climate change, which significantly alters the ecological material cycle and affects ecosystem function. However, in urban ecosystems, the direction and pattern of forest soil pH variation affected by urbanization are still unclear. In this study, we obtained the level of urbanization by remote sensing and combined it with urban forest soil properties obtained from field sampling to ascertain the effects of urbanization on the soil in Changchun city, Northeast China. Our results showed that the urban soil pH of urban forests was significantly higher than that in suburban (+3%) and outside-city forests (+33 %, p < 0.001) and that it increased with an increasing level of urbanization (p < 0.001). The other soil physical–chemical properties of urban forests in urban areas, such as soil electrical conductivity and EC (+41 %, p < 0.001; +172 %, p < 0.001) and soil water content and SWC (-9%; p > 0.05; −27 %, p < 0.001), were also significantly different from those in suburban and outside-city forests, but there were no evident changes in soil bulk density. Urbanization has caused topsoil soil water deficits and serious soil alkalization. The expansion of total impervious surface coverage (TISC) is the main influencing factor that has both direct (TISC-pH) and indirect effects (TISC-BD-SWC-EC-pH chain) on urban forest soil alkalization. Our findings highlight that urbanization possibly reverses the urban forest soil acidification risk and that its significance should be considered in global biogeochemical cycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]