What drives and sustains citizen participation in urban green space governance? A systematic scoping review

Citizen participation is central to the long-term governance of urban green spaces, yet evidence on why residents engage, what enables or constrains involvement, and what sustains participation remains fragmented. Following PRISMA-ScR, this review synthesized 86 English-language peer-reviewed empirical studies published between 1997 and 2025 and identified through Web of Science, Scopus, and backward reference screening. The findings distinguish four motivational domains: personal and experiential, social and relational, value-based and affective, and civic or problem-driven. Whether motivation developed into participation depended on institutional support, social mobilization, spatial opportunity structures, and project design, while limited capacity, distrust, governance barriers, and material constraints impeded involvement. Continued participation was reinforced by trust, ownership, collective identity, learning, and adaptive capacity, but weakened by maintenance burdens, unstable resources, unresolved conflict, and weak monitoring. The evidence was concentrated in parks and community gardens and in the Global North, limiting transferability across green-space and governance contexts. We integrate these findings into a process-oriented framework linking willingness, initial involvement, continued participation, and long-term stewardship. The framework highlights how meaningful influence, accessible participation pathways, trusted relationships, and practical support can enable more inclusive and durable urban green space governance.