The connection people from many different backgrounds have to public space along Sydney's Georges River is close, sometimes spiritual, according to the initial findings of a major study of the use of parks along the river from Liverpool to Botany Bay.

The UTS-led research, which started about two years ago, has involved interviews with people from four cultural groups – Indigenous, Anglo-Celtic, Vietnamese and Arabic-speaking – asking how they use the Georges River parks and what those places mean to them.

For some the parks represent cultural heritage or childhood memories, or in the case of some Vietnamese migrants, a reminder of the river country of their homeland. For many, however, it offers an opportunity to open up new relationships with places and people across the cultural dividing lines.

Undertaken in partnership with the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation and assisted by a Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council, the research will be a resource for park managers to understand who has a stake in the care and conservation of public open space in the region.

Associate Professor Heather Goodall from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Associate Professor Stephen Wearing from the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism in the Faculty of Business head the research team, which also includes Dr Allison Cadzow from Humanities and Social Sciences and Dr Denis Byrne from the Department of Environment and Conservation.

Professors Goodall and Wearing said they considered the work "vital to the survival of urban parks."

"Australian cities are experiencing rapid increases in cultural and ethnic diversity as immigration and lifestyle patterns change and as earlier population groups migrate internally and their populations age," they said.

"If cultural or ethnic groups are constrained in their use of parks then the opportunity to build relationships with places and with the communities who use them within Australia is missed.

"The question of social relations in parklands is important because in order to survive as viable ecologies, parklands must be socially as well as biologically sustainable – that is, people will work to protect and preserve a place that is meaningful to them."