Many public and private parks and facilities exist for many leisure activities and other uses. There are many ways these parks must be maintained, including trash pickup, landscaping, fixing broken playground equipment and keeping trails in usable shape. Typically, people must be assigned to do the work associated with maintaining parks; these people commonly work for a city or county government office.
Every kind of park requires park maintenance, and some need more than others. The main factor that determines the quantity of work that needs to be done is typically the number of people who use the park. Another factor is the kind of park it is, including playgrounds, nature preserves, athletic facilities, trails, beaches, bodies of water, and others. The main type of park maintenance that usually needs to be done, regardless of the variety of park, is trash pickup and cleanup.
The purpose of most park maintenance is to preserve the aesthetics of the park, which can include the landscaping and its surrounding areas. People in charge of keeping a park or facility maintained will often have to rebuild any of a number of its broken or worn-down elements. A common example along these lines is when a playground has broken equipment; not only is it unavailable for use, but it may pose a serious safety threat to children who attempt to use it. Other safety issues can include broken fences or obstructions on a path; such problems generally are considered a maintenance priority.
Park maintenance may include the building of more facilities or even the addition of natural structures, such as man-made lakes or new nature trails. For community-owned parks, the money for doing new kinds of work often comes from public works funds that have been allocated by the government that oversees the park. This money can come from taxes, donations, and fees to use the facilities. The cost to maintain a private park depends on how many people are employed to maintain it and what type of maintenance is involved. A water park, for example, could have higher maintenance costs than a small park with a playground.
Park maintenance workers can be employed publicly or privately. Parks can fall under the jurisdiction of a city, county, state, country, or private entity. The duration that a worker will maintain a park depends mainly on who owns the park, whether or not the park is open year-round, and the type of maintenance that must be done.