Circularity in the Urban Water-Energy-Nutrients-Food nexus

Urban Farm DB summary

Drawing on case-study water-energy-food (WEF) nexus research at urban farms, which found that two distinct types of "food" are relevant to urban agriculture, this study (2022, no specific region) splits the "food" component of the WEF framework to build a water-energy-nutrients-food (WENF) nexus framework for urban farming. The systematic WENF monitoring, analysis, and evaluation framework aims to support quality data acquisition during case-study research at farm sites, addressing a quantitative data gap on urban agriculture and closed circularity loops; it differentiates stocks of water, energy, nutrients, and food, describes flows within each, and identifies multi-sectoral flows and interdependencies among the four resource stocks to formulate options for circularity in urban farming. The analysis indicates urban systems offer many opportunities for realizing sustainable agriculture in cities because waste management and farming can mutually reinforce each other: local reuse of resources found in urban "waste" could reduce stormwater problems and energy needs for water, nutrient, and food transport, irrigation, and wastewater pumping, while eliminating the need for synthetic soil amendments and unsustainable mineral mining, and reusing resources from urban (waste)water in urban farming could reduce food production's overall negative environmental impact.