Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
Theme
Critical findings
967 results(30 / 39)
The Role and Importance of Agricultural Biodiversity in Urban Agriculture
2017Gudrun B. Keding, Céline Termote, Katja Kehlenbeck · · Kenya
Trees offer multiple benefits to urban agriculture, providing both production and service functions, and their integration into urban gardens enhances efficient resource use. In Kenya, traditional leafy vegetables were often replaced by introduced varieties, though producing perishable goods close to urban markets offers advantages. However, commercial production may lead to the dominance of exotic species and loss of indigenous ones. Urban gardens supported abundant and diverse wild flora, comparable to unmanaged plots. Rapidly growing urban populations seek food, income improvement, and cultural retention.
BiodiversityUrban–rural linkageEconomicsBird responses to habitat change in the karst area of Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park
2017Indra A.S.L.P. Putri, Bayu Wisnu Broto, Fajri Ansari · Jurnal Penelitian Kehutanan Wallacea · Indonesia
In the Maros-Pangkep karst area of Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park, Indonesia, bird responses to habitat change were studied across three disturbance degrees (core-zone, wilderness-zone, community-gardens). Birds in the karst were sensitive to habitat changes, responding by reducing individual and species numbers, shifting species from low to high tolerance, changing feeding guilds, decreasing large-bodied species, and reducing species requiring special nesting locations.
BiodiversityCommunityUrban agriculture and the reassembly of the city: lessons from Wuhan, China.
2017S. S. Horowitz, Liu JuanJuan Liu JuanJuan · CABI eBooks · China (Wuhan)
This chapter, focusing on a case study of intra-urban agriculture in Wuhan, China, mapped the dynamic relations between actors, institutions, processes, and spaces. Theoretical and practical challenges to growing food within Chinese cities were identified, and ways for state and non-state actors to collaborate in reassembling intra-urban agriculture to maximize its social, ecological, and economic contributions were suggested.
Governance failureCommunityPolicyEconomicsBiodiversityA Knotty Problem: Arts Based Action Research in and out of a Community Garden
2017Sam Smiley · Catalyst Feminism Theory Technoscience · United States (Provincetown, MA)
This arts-based action research, conducted by media artist and researcher sam smiley, explored the process of building a sculpture from Japanese Knotweed, an "invasive species," in the B-Street community garden in Provincetown, MA, USA. A series of community interventions with gardeners, naturalists, and sculptors were organized during the May 2016 Appearances Environmental Arts Festival. This article debriefs the journey of the Knotweed Sculpture from the community garden to its ultimate destruction in a bonfire on National Seashore.
CommunityBiodiversitySpecificities of French community gardens as environmental stewardships
2017Ana Cristina Torres, Sophie Nadot, Anne‐Caroline Prévot · Ecology and Society · France
This study used participant observation and semi-structured interviews to explore motivations, practices, and processes in French community gardens, relating them to environmental stewardship. It found that environmental, social, and self-motivations drive gardener participation, fulfilling needs through processes like nature contemplation, environmental education, and renewing social-ecological relationships. French community gardens provide new experiences of nature and foster environmental stewardship by cultivating relational values, offering opportunities for creative conservation.
CommunityBiodiversityFood educationPolicyNodes of a peri-urban agricultural landscape at local level: an interpretation of their contribution to the eco-structure
2017Rocío Pérez-Campaña, Luis Miguel Valenzuela Montes · Journal of Environmental Planning and Management · Spain
This paper presents a method for assessing and visualizing existing nodes in the field pattern of a peri-urban agricultural landscape. The method was applied in the Vega del Guadalfeo in southern Spain, and the results showed an innovative map of the Vega, which can be interpreted as its eco-structure, a node-based model representing the ecological value of the peri-urban agricultural landscape.
Peri-urban agricultureBiodiversityUrban–rural linkage都市農業振興基本計画
2016農林水産省, 国土交通省 · 農林水産省（都市農業振興基本法に基づく政府の基本計画・閣議決定） · Japan
The government's basic plan under the Urban Agriculture Promotion Act (2015). It places 'realising the diverse functions of urban agriculture' at the centre and sets three new policy directions: securing urban farmers, securing land for farming, and full-scale agricultural-promotion measures. It is the core plan underpinning municipalities' citizen farms, experience farms and farmland conservation nationwide.
PolicyCommunityBiodiversityFood educationEconomicsEcosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan: A handbook for practitioners
2016Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan · Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan · Japan
A practitioner handbook compiled by Japan's Ministry of the Environment on Eco-DRR (Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction). It systematizes the use of ecosystems and traditional land use—forests preventing soil erosion, coastal forests attenuating tsunamis, wetlands and paddy fields providing temporary flood storage—to achieve disaster risk reduction and biodiversity conservation simultaneously, providing a policy basis for treating urban and rural farmland and greenery as protective green infrastructure.
PolicyBiodiversityCommunityGlobal conservation priorities for crop wild relatives
2016Castaneda-Alvarez N.P., Khoury C.K., Achicanoy H.A., Jarvis D.I., Maxted N., Toll J. · Nature Plants · Global
Models the distribution of 1,076 taxa related to 81 crops, finding over 70% are high priority for further collection because they are poorly represented in genebanks relative to their native ranges.
Heirloom & landraceBiodiversityPolicyMaize Germplasm Conservation in Southern California's Urban Gardens: Introduced Diversity Beyond ex situ and in situ Management
2016Heraty J.M., Ellstrand N.C. · Economic Botany 70(1):37-48 · Global
Measures maize genetic diversity in home and community gardens kept by immigrant farmers in Southern California, showing transnational seed dispersal sustains landrace diversity beyond recognized centers of diversity.
Heirloom & landraceBiodiversityCommunityGenetic divergence of turnip (Brassica rapa L. em. Metzg. subsp. rapa) inferred from simple sequence repeats in chloroplast and nuclear genomes and morphology
2016Takahashi Yu, Yokoi Shuji, Takahata Yoshihito · Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution, 63(5): 869-879 · Japan
Analysis of 87 turnip accessions using chloroplast and nuclear SSRs and morphology revealed distinct haplogroups between eastern and western Eurasia, with continental Asian accessions (including Japan) showing the highest genetic diversity.
Heirloom & landraceBiodiversityNative fruit tree genetic resources in Japan
2016Iketani Hiroyuki · Breeding Science, 66(1): 82-89 · Japan
A review of Japan's native fruit tree genetic resources shaped by its diverse climate, summarizing the status of wild and local fruit taxa, red-listed species, and the state of conservation in genebanks and botanical gardens.
Heirloom & landraceBiodiversityPolicyEstimation of loss of genetic diversity in modern Japanese cultivars by comparison of diverse genetic resources in Asian pear (Pyrus spp.)
2016Nishio Sogo, Takada Norio, Saito Toshihiro, Yamamoto Toshiya, Iketani Hiroyuki · BMC Genetics, 17: 81 · Japan
Comparing wild, Chinese, local, and modern Japanese pear cultivars, the study found reduced heterozygosity and allelic richness in modern cultivars, which were genetically close to Kanto local cultivars and strongly biased toward 'Nijisseiki'.
Heirloom & landraceBiodiversityEffects of Garden Attributes on Ant (Formicidae) Species Richness and Potential for Pest Control
2016Naim Edwards · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · United States (Ann Arbor)
This study investigated ant (Formicidae) species diversity in relation to garden attributes at three gardening sites in Ann Arbor, Michigan, along with predation experiments testing biocontrol of Cabbage Looper moths and Squash Bugs. It sampled 19 ant species from 12 genera, finding that soil texture, intense tilling and distance from less-disturbed areas significantly reduced species richness, with less-tilled plots averaging nearly double the species of tractor-tilled plots. Ants consumed Cabbage Looper eggs and larvae, and the authors conclude that reducing disturbance in and around gardens can promote ant biodiversity and beneficial pest predation.
BiodiversityCommunityUse of human-made nesting structures by wild bees in an urban environment
2016Fortel L., Henry M., Guilbaud L., Mouret H., Vaissiere B. E. · Journal of Insect Conservation · Lyon, France
Surveys use of human-made nesting structures (trap nests / bee hotels) by cavity-nesting wild bees in an urban setting, examining how artificial nesting aids may supplement scarce urban nesting resources.
PollinatorsBiodiversityThe position of urban allotment gardens within the urban fabric
2016Sandra María Fonseca da Costa, Runrid Fox-Kämper, Russell Good, Ivana Sentić, S. Treija, Jasminka Rizovska Atanasovska, Hervé Bonnavaud · · Europe
This chapter provides an understanding of the position of allotment and community gardens within the urban fabric across Europe. It offers insights into their diverse locations, relationships to other green spaces, reciprocal impact on the urban landscape and people, and their role in green infrastructure, including functions, connectivity, and accessibility for residents.
CommunityPolicyUrban–rural linkageBiodiversityUrban green infrastructure and urban forests: a case study of the Metropolitan Area of Milan
2016Giovanni Sanesi, Giuseppe Colangelo, Raffaele Lafortezza, Enrico Calvo, Clive Davies · Landscape Research · Italy (Milan)
This study assessed land use changes and policy impacts on urban green infrastructure (UGI) in the Metropolitan Area of Milan, Italy. Since the 1970s, policies have led to the creation of 10,000 hectares of new forests and green systems, such as Boscoincittà and Parco Nord Milano, to address green space loss. The research, part of the Emonfur project, aims to identify effective measures for increasing UGI quality and quantity.
PolicyCommunityBiodiversityUrban–rural linkageLandscape and Local Correlates of Bee Abundance and Species Richness in Urban Gardens
2016Robyn D. Quistberg, Peter Bichier, Stacy M. Philpott · Environmental Entomology · United States (California)
This study investigated bee abundance and species richness in 19 urban community gardens on the California central coast using aerial nets and pan traps. Researchers found 55 bee species and identified that local factors, such as garden size, floral abundance, mulch cover, bare ground, and grass, were generally more important correlates than landscape factors. Medium bees were less abundant in areas with more medium-intensity developed land within 2 km.
BiodiversityPollinatorsCommunityAn Integrated Environmental Analysis Framework for Multi-Functional Urban Food Production Utilizing Nutrient Recycling from Organic Waste Streams
2016William Kort · UWM Digital Commons (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee) · United States
This study developed a framework for life cycle environmental assessment of urban organic waste utilization in urban agriculture, specifically fruit and vegetable production. Results suggest that a full "urban nutrient cycle" offers significant environmental benefits, including meeting up to 70% of vegetable and 17% of fruit consumption needs in Northern and Eastern U.S. cities, with potential water savings of 10-17% of annual domestic use. Optimizing resource recovery through source separation leads to 1-2% lower wastewater generation and up to 44% greater phosphorus recovery, while overall energy and emissions benefits are 1-2% of a city's annual totals.
Organic cycleCompostClimate changeBiodiversityCultural services provided by urban allotment garden ecosystems
2016Janina Borysiak, Andrzej Mizgajski · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global
This study identified 64 cultural ecosystem services provided by urban allotment garden ecosystems. These services fit into the lowest level of the CICES v.4.3 classification, representing class types within one section, two divisions, three groups, and eight classes. All identified services were tabulated and discussed in light of the latest scientific publications.
CommunityBiodiversityHealthХарактер угодий водосбора малых мелководных озер и факторы уязвимости их экосистем
2016Alexandra Rizhinashvili · Digital Library of the Belarusian State University (Belarusian State University) · Global
This study analyzed the key limnetic parameters of four small shallow lakes: two located in allotment garden areas and two in forest-covered areas. It found that lakes with largely unexploited catchments contain a "hidden" source of nutrient load, primarily phosphates. Furthermore, lakes with catchments occupied by allotment gardens exhibited intensive overgrowth by floating vegetation.
Environmental trade-offsCommunityBiodiversityLiving in cities, naturally
2016Terry Hartig, Peter H. Kahn · Science · Global
Natural features, settings, and processes in urban areas can help reduce stress associated with urban life. Public health benefits from street trees, green roofs, community gardens, parks, open spaces, and extensive connective pathways for walking and biking. Such urban design provisions also yield ecological benefits, both directly and by shaping attitudes toward the environment and environmental protection.
CommunityHealthBiodiversityJardin partagé des Piedalloues Auxerre
2016Petites ruches · · France (Auxerre)
The shared garden of the Maison de Quartier des Piedalloues in Auxerre, France, features lawns intentionally left high to attract butterflies such as the 'demi-deuil', which pollinate knautia flowers. Residents have also participated in creating palisades or 'branch walls' using split acacia stakes within the garden.
CommunityBiodiversityPollinatorsThe Bees among Us: Modelling Occupancy of Solitary Bees
2016J. Scott MacIvor, Laurence Packer · PLoS ONE · Global
This study modeled the occupancy probability of six solitary bee species using nest boxes set along an urbanization gradient over three consecutive years. Native M. pugnata showed decreased occupancy with increasing building footprint, and a similar but not significant pattern was found for native O. pumila. Conversely, introduced M. rotundata and M. centuncularis, along with native M. campanulae, exhibited increased occupancy with rising urbanization.
Environmental trade-offsBiodiversityPollinatorsClimate changeGrowing green values
2016Kajsa Ignell, Åsa Bugge Marin · · Argentina (Buenos Aires)
A field study was conducted in November and December 2015 at six urban agricultural sites in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The study aimed to map ecosystem services at these sites and assess urban agriculture's potential to strengthen adaptive capacity and resilience in Buenos Aires. The mapping and research showed that urban agriculture provides many ecosystem services, creating a sense of community and other social values, and contributing to urban temperature regulation, added biodiversity, and water infiltration.
CommunityFood sovereignty & justiceBiodiversityClimate change