Research & reports

Katie Boswell, Anne Kazimirski · New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) · United Kingdom

A January 2016 briefing from the UK think tank NPC, summarising a seminar for small charities held on 9 July 2015. It starts from the reality that, unlike larger charities with dedicated evaluation staff and budgets, small organisations tend to share measurement duties among staff or leave them on a chief executive's long to-do list. It argues that good impact measurement helps concentrate limited resources on activities that work and helps attract funding, but must be kept in proportion to the scale of the work, and sets out NPC's four-pillar approach beginning with mapping a theory of change.

Clausen M. · Cities and the Environment (CATE) · Germany (Berlin)

Case study of Berlin's Prinzessinnengarten, examining how a volunteer-run garden on a vacant Kreuzberg lot became a multifunctional semi-public space and how its community mobilized against privatization of the land.

· Sustainability · Germany (Berlin)

Analyzes benefits and challenges of Zero-Acreage Farming (building-integrated agriculture such as rooftop gardens and greenhouses) in Berlin from an aggregated multi-stakeholder perspective, identifying rooftop greenhouses as the most promising model.

· Agriculture and Human Values · Germany (Berlin)

A qualitative study from Berlin examining public perception and acceptance of agricultural production in and on urban buildings (ZFarming).

Matthew Thompson · Antipode · United Kingdom (Liverpool)

This paper explores the community land trust (CLT) model as an institutional solution to urban decline, focusing on a case study in Granby, Liverpool, England. The Granby CLT campaign aims to collectively acquire empty homes, with guerrilla gardening playing a role in gaining political trust and financial support. The study discusses the CLT model's potential for democratic stewardship and the contradictions that may undermine its political legitimacy.

Maja Lorbek, Milena Martinsen · Urbani izziv · Europe

This paper examines the evolution of allotments and allotment dwellings in Germany and Austria by comparing gardeners' actual practices with the development and changes in the legal framework. It found that legislation and zoning regulations, often established retrospectively, reveal an ongoing negotiation process between informal practices and planning authorities. Allotment gardens, which emerged in the late 19th century, originally served a subsistence economy, providing food and emergency accommodation.

Judith Schicklinski · WIFO Studies · Europe

Across Europe, self-organized civil society movements are emerging to address local challenges, particularly in maintaining and developing green spaces where local governments face budget constraints. Initiatives like urban gardening demonstrate people's ability to cooperate, organize, and take responsibility for green spaces, introducing practices that support socio-ecological transition. These activities contribute to urban sustainability by providing ecological benefits and recreational opportunities.

Amandine Joly · · France

This study characterized and strategically analyzed urban agriculture for the IETI external planning and environment consulting firm in Île-de-France, France. The analysis aimed to help IETI position itself commercially in urban agriculture, identifying both the benefits and the obstacles the firm might encounter. The study also briefly discussed the various scales of urban agriculture's integration into the territory and its advantages for the consulting firm.

Elena Bertrán Arroyo · · Spain (Córdoba)

This study states that cities are socio-biological systems where social and natural aspects are interconnected through the provision and consumption of ecosystem services.

Flor Ccorahua balboa, Sylvie Clarimont · · Spain

This abstract discusses the re-evaluation of nature's role in and around cities, driven by global sustainable development challenges like environmental preservation and food security. It notes that agriculture is increasingly used to reconcile urban and natural spaces due to its recognized multifunctional character. The emergence of new agricultural spaces in intra-urban and peri-urban areas of major cities in both developed and developing countries reflects a shift in local policies towards integrating cities with nature.

Aurora Cavallo, Benedetta Di Donato, Rossella Guadagno, Davide Marino · RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA · Italy (Rome)

This paper examines the characteristics and dynamics of urban agriculture in Rome, Italy, aiming to propose a taxonomy of urban agriculture types. It presents a preliminary analysis using criteria to classify the functional and relational features of agricultural activities within the urban phenomenon. The study attempts to reconstruct causal relationships between agricultural production models and their spatial and functional forms in the urban dimension.

· REGAC - Revista de Estudios Globales y Arte Contempor�neo · Spain (Valencia)

This paper maps collective initiatives in Valencia, Spain, that emerged in response to inadequate national and local cultural policies. These initiatives, including urban orchards, acted as resistance to institutional policies or appropriated spaces due to a lack of public institutional interest. They function as urban experimentation laboratories for social and cultural transformation, forming a dense local network.

Michael J. Roth, Miryam Frixen, Carlos Tobisch, Thomas Scholle · · Germany (Dortmund)

This study analyzed how urban agriculture can stimulate and support urban renewal in an economically declined neighborhood in Dortmund-Hörde, Germany, using a case study. A project path was developed using participatory action research to involve residents and stakeholder groups, fostering collective stewardship for urban agriculture forms. The research concluded that synchronously combining research, planning, design, and implementation with intense feedback loops can achieve synergies for academic knowledge on urban agriculture's potential performance in sustainable development, as well as benefits for the case-study area and individual urban gardeners.

Judith Schicklinski · Econstor (Econstor) · Europe

This article examines the role of civil society movements in managing green spaces across European cities, particularly in the context of socio-ecological transition and tight public budgets. It highlights how self-organized initiatives like urban gardening contribute to maintaining and developing biodiverse green spaces, offering recreational, ecological, and climate resilience benefits. The discussion explores how citizen groups can expand green spaces and which policy frameworks foster collaboration for innovative urban food production and green-space management.

Ellen Banzhaf, Helen Kollai · ˜The œinternational archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences/International archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences · Germany (Leipzig)

This study monitored urban tree cover in Leipzig, Germany, over a decade to understand its distribution and changes for sustainable urban development. Using digital orthophotos, a digital elevation model, and a digital surface model, an object-based image analysis scheme was employed for detailed tree mapping. The results demonstrated high accuracy in tree detection and effective avoidance of misclassification caused by shadows.

Piotr Godyń, Maria Zielińska, Agnieszka Dołhańczuk-Śródka, Zbigniew Ziembik · Geology Geophysics & Environment · Poland

Soil samples were collected from 19 sites around the Opole industrial zone in Poland to determine the influence of the local metallurgical industry on soil contamination with metals, using Pb-210 as a contamination tracer. Results indicated that the metallurgical industry is not a source of environmental pollution in the immediate vicinity. Excessive lead concentrations ranged from 1 Bq/kg d.m. to 100 Bq/kg d.m. but were not strongly correlated with distances from the presumed source of contamination.

Rocío Pérez-Campaña · European Planning Studies · Spain

This research analyzed land-use transformations of peri-urban agricultural deltas and vegas in Andalucía, Spain, focusing on medium-sized cities between 1956 and 2007. It also assessed their consideration in regional spatial planning. The findings indicate that these landscapes are changing land use and sometimes disappearing, receiving meagre attention and vague consideration in spatial planning.

Gioia Gibelli · TERRITORIO · Italy (Milan)

Agriculture has long been an important resource for Milan and its surroundings, with its significance increasing in recent years. Agricultural areas near the city can enhance urban metabolism and citizens' quality of life through ecosystem and landscape services, providing cultural and environmental services, and improving urban resilience. In this context, two important initiatives, the Agricultural District of Milan (DAM) and 'Parco delle Risaie', have been underway in Milan since 2008.

Giuseppe Cinà, Francesco Di Iacovo · PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) · Italy

This paper examines urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in Italy, identifying challenges in its planning, including the traditional exclusion of agricultural areas from territorial planning and the lack of local agricultural policy. The study highlights a disconnect between top-down policies and bottom-up practices, noting that numerous autonomous initiatives have emerged due to insufficient regional and local planning solutions. The authors conclude that overcoming the limitations of the top-down planning system, particularly in governance and inclusiveness, is a primary challenge for Italy.

Valerio Moretti, Adele Sateriano, Marco Zitti, Luca Salvati · · Europe

This article discusses the relationship between landscape and peri-urban agriculture and its implications for rural area management in the northern Mediterranean basin. It proposes a framework to evaluate the links between agro-forest systems and expanding urban settlements. The study advocates for a sustainable land management perspective in policies to preserve fringe land from excessive settlement scattering and landscape fragmentation, contributing to systemic and multi-scale approaches for territorial policies and integrated management of peri-urban agricultural landscapes.

Carlos Verdaguer Viana-Cárdenas · · Europe

This report describes the third Training School of the COST Action Urban Agriculture Europe, held in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain, from 24 to 26 September 2014. The city had recently expanded through two new neighborhoods, Zabalgana and Salburua, along its greenbelt, but these areas suffered from over-dimensioned public space lacking density and mixed uses and were expensive for the municipality to maintain; the Training School used Zabalgana as a practical field to explore urban agriculture as a way to re-qualify this excess public space, through field visits and presentations followed by a one-day design charrette.

Luisa Pedrazzini · TERRITORIO · Europe

This dossier compiles contributions from an international workshop, "Spatial and Landscape Planning and Design in EU and Lombardy," held at Politecnico di Milano in June 2013. It presents experiences from the EU, Île-de-France, Lombardy, and the United States, highlighting the distinctive features of peri-urban space and landscape and the potential of peri-urban agriculture.

Karen Hart · Primary Teacher Update · United Kingdom

A short article (2015, United Kingdom) describes the design of a new school in West London — featuring state-of-the-art classrooms, a rooftop garden, and a multi-use sports facility — as aiming to fulfil the borough's holistic vision.

Beatriz Giobellina, Yuliana Céliz · Repositorio Digital de la UNC (National University of Cordoba) · Europe

This paper was presented at the International Seminar on Territorial Development and Innovation Policy, held in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, and Valencia, Spain, in 2015. The available abstract provides only this presentation context, with no further detail on content or findings.

Bernd Pölling, Bernd Pölling, Rolf Born, Rolf Born · 0028-0615 · Germany

Urban agriculture is defined here as the market-oriented, professional agricultural and horticultural activities carried out within and at the edges of densely built urban areas. It is characterized by its diversity of business orientations and multifunctionality.