Research & reports

Sofyan Sufri, Jonatan Lassa · Environmental Hazards · Indonesia (Aceh)

This article examined the barriers and opportunities of the Climate Village Programme (ProKlim) in Aceh, Indonesia. Key stakeholder interviews (N=38) and policy content analysis in three villages within Banda Aceh city revealed hypothetical barriers to CCAM, including the absence of a sustained mechanism for effective flood adaptation, insufficient resources for supporting adaptive urban agriculture practices, lack of community participation, and inadequate integration of scientific and local knowledge into early warning systems. Despite ProKlim being an innovative program, challenges remained, as past disaster events were viewed as distant memories, hindering proactive risk reduction efforts by local authorities and residents.

Nicolás Carrasco-Astudillo, Juan José Medina-Musellas, Kàtia Gaspar, Marta Gangolells, Miquel Casals · Building and Environment · Spain (Catalonia)

This paper evaluates rooftop agrivoltaic systems integrating urban agriculture, photovoltaic generation, and rainwater collection for building resilience and water-energy-food synergies. Tested via EnergyPlus simulations in a reference residential building across nine climate zones in Catalonia, Spain, the strategy showed climate-dependent benefits. The most consistent performance was in the Csa climate (Barcelona), demonstrating robust reductions in energy demand, emissions, and discomfort hours under current and future climate scenarios.

Wendpouiré Léticia Nadège Nonguierma, Jean-Marie Dipama · Afrique contemporaine · Africa

A study of the "Ceinture verte" (Green Belt) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, as a nature-based response to climate adaptation. Established in 1976 and relaunched in 2018, the initiative combines forestry development with urban agriculture, aiming to contain urban sprawl, improve the local climate and strengthen the capital's resilience. The study combined a diachronic analysis of Landsat imagery from 1984-2024 with interviews of institutional actors, associative partners and direct beneficiaries. Results show significant contributions — expansion of dense vegetation in some areas, a perceived improvement in air quality, the creation of income-generating market-gardening activities, and the inclusion of vulnerable populations — but also reveal strong constraints: illegal occupations covering a significant share of the land, fragmented governance, limited access to water, security fragility, and still-limited involvement of local residents. The study discusses the feasibility of a trajectory to 2050 between an optimistic scenario conditional on structural reforms and a critical scenario underscoring current limits, and offers lessons transferable to urban adaptation policies in other Sahelian metropolises.

Siti Hadianti, Nurhasanah Nurhasanah, Teguh Prakoso, Hidayah Hidayah, Siti Hadianti · Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat · Indonesia

A community-service report on a community-based organic waste management program in Kurungkambing Village, Banten Province, Indonesia, aimed at improving environmental quality and supporting sustainable rural tourism. Despite the village's agricultural and tourism potential, unmanaged household and agricultural organic waste had been contributing to environmental degradation and limited community awareness of sustainable waste practices. Using a participatory, empowerment-oriented approach, the program was implemented in three stages: (1) community needs assessment and stakeholder consultation, (2) training and mentoring on composting and herbal plant cultivation, and (3) environmental improvement through school garden development and compost use. The program reported increased community awareness of organic waste management, improved practical composting skills, and active participation in greening activities involving residents and schools, as well as strengthened collaboration among the university, local government and community groups that contributed to cleaner public spaces and more sustainable village conditions.

AltTech LLC & Subsidiaries, The People's Coalition of Planet Earth · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · United States

This paper presents Project Ubuntu's "Big Green Web," a proposed nationwide U.S. framework of interconnected, renewable-energy-powered community-governed food forests intended to provide free, open-access food production for communities of color, drawing on principles of food sovereignty, environmental justice and mutual aid; the paper examines the framework's theoretical foundations and operational structure as a proposed model rather than reporting outcomes from an implemented program.

Warvan Barzani · REAL CORP Repository (University of Southampton) · Asia

This paper examines Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as a case of medium-sized-city urban transformation, using planning documentation, project descriptions and spatial development interpretation to ask whether green infrastructure elements such as Sami Abdulrahman Park and the Orbital Green Belt Project function only as environmental enhancement or also as instruments of spatial governance within Erbil's updated master-planning framework, which introduces growth boundaries, zoning reforms, density regulation and environmental overlays amid pressure on peri-urban agricultural land from two decades of demographic and spatial expansion.

Mohamed Beidari, Inoussa Tougri, Bernard Lamien · Journal of Environmental Protection · Africa

For Burkina Faso, a circular Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) nexus framework was developed that couples wastewater reuse in peri-urban agriculture with biomass energy recovery from crop residues, using Material Flow Analysis, a screening-level Life Cycle Assessment, four-scenario simulation (baseline, water reuse only, biomass only, full circular integration) calibrated for 2005-2024, an exploratory STIRPAT elasticity analysis, and Monte Carlo uncertainty propagation around a composite Nexus Efficiency Index. Every quantitative result is a simulated output from a literature-constrained synthetic dataset rather than an empirical measurement for Burkina Faso; under the central assumptions, the fully integrated circular scenario was modelled to reduce freshwater abstraction by about 25-40%, increase yields by 20-40%, and cut farm-gate CO2-equivalent emissions by 30-45% relative to the linear baseline. The mobilizable biomass potential of cotton stalks and rice husks was estimated at around 44,891 tonnes of oil equivalent per year, with indicative payback periods of 5-10 years for small biogas digesters and gasifiers in representative peri-urban configurations.

Ayhan Horuz, Güney Akınoğlu · · Turkey

A Turkish book chapter arguing that agriculture-derived air pollution, compounded by growing industrial and urban pollutant loads, is threatening food production, product quality, and food security by directly and indirectly impairing plant growth and development. It notes that population growth, energy production, transportation, waste management, and biomass burning have substantially increased atmospheric organic and inorganic pollutants, pushing air quality beyond acceptable limits in many regions. The first part evaluates the effects on agroecosystems of tropospheric (ground-level) ozone, PM2.5 and PM10, nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), agricultural ammonia (NH3), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), detailing how tropospheric ozone suppresses photosynthesis causing yield losses in staple crops such as wheat and soybean, and how particulate matter directly and indirectly affects soil and plant health, alongside the effects of acid rain and nitrogen deposition on soil fertility, water quality, and ecosystem balance, assessed against the four pillars of food security—availability, access, utilization, and stability. The second part discusses integrated policy approaches, industrial emission control technologies, and low-emission transport systems at the macro level, alongside agricultural strategies such as precision farming, improved fertilizer management, and innovative production techniques, and the role of green infrastructure in urban planning.

Elaheh Jalilzadehazhari · Sustainable Development · Global

This study analyses research trends at the intersection of nature-based solutions (NbS), food systems and the SDGs using a multi-method approach combining a systematic literature review, betweenness centrality analysis and fuzzy logic. It identifies growing interest in climate change and urban agriculture and expanding European-led international collaboration, and names five major trends -- land-water-food nexus, urban farming and green infrastructure, governance and policy, community readiness and indigenous knowledge, and soil health and regenerative techniques -- finding the governance/policy trend has the highest betweenness centrality for bridging SDGs and the community-readiness trend shows the strongest convergence of social, urban and ecological goals.

Paul Miner · Journal of urban regeneration and renewal · United Kingdom

This paper evaluates the evolving role of Green Belt policy in England, arguing that both the designation and the land it protects are increasingly critical to addressing environmental, climate and public health challenges. It defines the extent and characteristics of Green Belt and other "countryside around towns" land, showing that these areas prevent urban sprawl, support nature recovery, provide public access to green space and sustain cultural landscapes, while highlighting mounting pressures including housing demand, weakened planning controls, losses in farming capacity and newly introduced "grey belt" policy reforms, and recommending measures such as reinstating strategic planning through Spatial Development Strategies, adopting a brownfield-first approach, prioritising environmental land management, and considering new Green Belt designations or expanded National Landscape protections.

Javier Cañarejo-Antamba, Mónica Delgado Yánez, Nieves Anderson, Pamela Quinatoa León, Tatiana Elizabeth Freire Rosero · Eídos · Colombia

A comparative hydrological study, based on extreme-value statistics, of the Caupicho ravine south of Quito, an urban-agricultural transition zone. The most significant flood events correspond to 50-100 year return periods, but historical records show that the Lucha de los Pobres Baja neighborhood experiences flooding roughly every five years, causing economic losses and undermining social resilience. Based on vulnerability mapping and scenario modeling, the study identifies earthen ponds reinforced with totora (Schoenoplectus californicus) as biomaterial as a key input for flood-risk management and territorial planning, proposing the delimitation of evacuation and rescue areas.

Ane Novianty, Agus Fernando · MAHATANI Jurnal Agribisnis (Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics Journal) · Indonesia

A qualitative literature study examined forms of environmental damage caused by industrial activity in Cikarang, Indonesia—where industrial sector growth has contributed significantly to the economy while also bringing serious environmental degradation—and assessed the role sustainable agriculture can play in environmental recovery. Analysis of national and international scientific literature found that sustainable agriculture, particularly urban agriculture and environmentally friendly farming around industrial areas, has strategic potential as part of green infrastructure, functioning not only as a food source but also contributing to pollutant absorption, rainwater management, temperature control in the area, and improved soil quality and biodiversity.

V. Costanzo, M. Detommaso, G. Evola, F. Nocera, M. Mistretta, S. Longo · Energy and Buildings · Italy

A study introduces and validates a novel Deep Water Culture hydroponic roof system as a building-integrated solution for enhancing indoor thermal conditions and energy efficiency in Mediterranean climates. Unlike conventional green roofs, the system removes the soil layer and uses a water-based nutrient solution that simultaneously supports plant growth and acts as a thermal energy buffer; a full-scale prototype was experimentally tested on an existing office building in Catania, Italy, and transient thermal modelling with TRNSYS then simulated different roof configurations using the experimental data. Results show the hydroponic roof reduces indoor peak temperatures by up to 2.8°C in summer, increases them by 2.4°C in winter, and shifts heat flux peaks by up to 16 hours, with annual simulations indicating energy savings of 47% for space cooling and 51% for space heating.

Brenda B. Lin, Shalene Jha, Heidi Liere, Stacy M. Philpott · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities · Global

Drawing on a long-term, multidisciplinary research program conducted since 2013 on urban community gardens in the California Central Coast, this paper uses that program as a lens to explore how community gardens may function as a form of green infrastructure within increasingly compact urban development, while grounded in a specific regional context.

Phạm Trung Kiên, Liliane Jean-Soro, Huong Le Thi Thu, Bernard De-Gouvello, Béatrice Bechet · Earth Environmental Sustainability · Global

Arguing that existing "Water-Energy-Food" nexus thinking fails to capture the complexity of urban nature-based solutions such as urban gardens, this perspective paper proposes a "Food-Water-Soil (FWS) nexus" framework analyzed through the dual lens of ecosystem services (ES) and ecosystem disservices (EDS), which arise together with ES rather than as mere byproducts. It positions ES and EDS as the core mediating functions that define a system's potential and limits, and conceptualizes soil as a "living infrastructure" whose management-driven dynamic properties govern the trade-offs and synergies between food production and water dynamics.

Rattan Lal · · Global

A book chapter addresses rising food and nutritional insecurity from rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and elsewhere, noting that 55% of the world population currently lives in cities, projected to reach 70% by 2050. It states that as much as 10-20% of food consumed could be grown within city limits, but that careful planning is needed to reduce risks from soil contamination, plastic pollution, and reuse of grey/black water and city-waste compost. It identifies rooftop gardens, multistory glass buildings, and soil-less methods such as aquaculture, hydroponics and aeroponics as modern forms of urban agriculture, and discusses barriers including land tenure and research priorities for scaling up.

Joan Casanelles-Abella, Monika Egerer · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities · Global

A perspective article discusses biodiversity conservation in cities as often afflicted by "suboptimal" situations where human needs and nature's needs are imbalanced or in conflict. In human-dominated landscapes, land use intensification often replaces large habitat patches critical for metapopulation stability with smaller, isolated patches, a pattern Island Biogeography Theory predicts will reduce biodiversity; this may be most extreme in cities experiencing rapid population growth and infrastructure densification, where small urban green spaces, balconies, home and allotment gardens, small forest patches and green walls, become the primary compensatory interventions for retaining habitat. However, under certain conservation frameworks (land-sparing vs. land-sharing, the SLOSS debate), such small, scattered urban green spaces may be predicted to produce suboptimal or even detrimental biodiversity outcomes if their size and isolation prevent them from sustaining viable population sizes. The article notes this "ecology of suboptimals" framing risks a futile perspective on nature conservation in densifying cities, while also considering how rethinking urban environments in light of this situation might be approached.

Herlyna Novasari Siahaan, Dilma’aarij Agustia, Chairia · Jurnal Abadimas Adi Buana · Indonesia

A community-service report on post-disaster recovery in Suka Damai village, Serdang Bedagai Regency, Indonesia, following repeated flooding that reduced agricultural production, household income and community health. Using a participatory approach combining a Climate Field School (SLI), bucket-based fish farming (budikdamber), urban farming and ecoprint training, the program evaluated 30 farmers from the Gapoktan Mekar farmer group with pre- and post-tests. Average scores rose from 58.6 to 78.9, a 34.6% increase, indicating improved knowledge and skills in climate-adaptive farm management. Budikdamber and urban farming were reported to improve household food security, while ecoprint training opened new environmentally friendly business opportunities for the local PKK (family welfare) group.

Daniel Etim Jacob, Imaobong Daniel Jacob, Koko Sunday Daniel, Pius Agaji Oko · Sustainable Food Connect · Global

A paper arguing that recreational planning in the Global South is constrained by Western models prioritizing ornamental aesthetics over local socio-ecological crises, producing metabolically inefficient and exclusionary landscapes, and proposing an "Agro-Blue Commons" (ABC) framework integrating food production, sustainable water management and communal leisure. The framework was tested through a qualitative meta-synthesis of four prototype cases in Lagos, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Nairobi, purposively sampled to represent diverse biomes and climate-vulnerable informal settlement types, evaluated with a Multi-Criteria Assessment focused on metabolic circularity, governance polycentricity and socio-spatial accessibility. Results show that integrating food, water and leisure together with polycentric stewardship increases urban resilience and reduces resource dependency, while the paper states that systemic change requires addressing institutional inertia and insecure land tenure to prevent speculative displacement of marginalized communities.

Candice M. Duncan, Fatemeh Ghezelsofla, Hlengilizwe Nyoni, Jazmin Escobar, Odette Mina · Toxics · United States

A study measuring per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in irrigation water at two organic farms in Maryland, USA, with no known direct PFAS input, and assessing health risk via a Hazard Index (HI). At agricultural site 1 (AG1), the most abundant compounds were PFBS (37 ng/L), PFBA (24 ng/L) and PFHxA (22 ng/L); the HI showed compliance for branched PFHxS (0.39) but non-compliance for linear PFHxS (1.51). At agricultural site 2 (AG2), despite no known industrial or PFAS-related facilities nearby, HFPO-DA (GenX) was detected at 28 ng/L, and the HI exceeded the compliance threshold (HI = 2.83), with GenX accounting for most of the calculated risk. The findings show HI exceedances occurring at small farm sites with no identifiable contamination source.

Patrick Sobotka · reposiTUm (TU Wien) · Austria

Set against growing urban populations, housing shortages, and ecological and social challenges, this TU Wien thesis is a design study exploring housing that supports urban agriculture through integrated vertical farming. Its aim was to develop a hybrid housing concept combining sustainable timber construction with vertical farming, using a modular timber structure intended to offer ecological benefits, short construction times, and the ability to add stories later without sealing new land. The project centers on compact apartments for young adults, students, and couples, drawing on literature review of sustainability, timber construction and vertical farming, plus analysis of selected reference projects, to produce a design concept. No quantitative evaluation results are reported.

Sasha Gillies-Lekakis, Heidi Zogbaum · International Journal of Cuban Studies · Cuba

Cuban historiography is typically divided into pre-1959 and post-1959 periods, but land-use practices show continuity across both. Two hundred years of export-oriented sugar planting left Cuba dependent on food imports, first from the United States and later the Soviet Union. After 1991, Cuba had to find ways to feed itself on land depleted by two centuries of monoculture. The introduction of permaculture — first developed in Australia and suited to urban agriculture — helped Cubans address some of these food supply problems, making Cuba a world leader in permaculture practice.

Abhijeet Das, Satchidananda Mishra · Green Technology Resilience and Sustainability · Global

This study develops a conceptual and analytical framework for embedding circular-economy and zero-waste principles into hydroponic agriculture systems worldwide, using system mapping, resource-flow analysis, and indicator structuring to compare linear, partial-recirculation, and near-zero-discharge configurations. The analysis found that continuous nutrient recirculation and controlled dosing improve resource retention, and that system stability increases when buffering capacities across water, nutrient, and energy subsystems are aligned; capacity balance and feedback control were identified as key determinants, though the work is conceptual, without empirical field validation.

Marcelo Budal Cabral, Alysson Maia Fontenele · Revista JurisFIB · Brazil

This legal article examines the significance of urban agriculture for greening cities and for greenhouse gas mitigation and climate adaptation in Brazil. Using bibliographic and documentary research with a hermeneutic approach, it analyzes precedents including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' Advisory Opinion 32/2025 (climate emergency) and the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court's Arguição de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental 708 (Climate Fund case), alongside the national Urban and Periurban Agriculture Policy and other normative texts. It concludes that ecological and climate protection duties, reinforced by these court precedents, require implementing and fostering urban agriculture in order to realize the right to a healthy climate.

Iasmin Emanueli Becker, Luciana Nunes de Oliveira, Jordana Marques Kneipp, Augusto Costa Bernardy, Edgar Cesar Rodrigues Maia, Juarez Felisberto · Revista Tópicos. · Brazil

As urban flooding, heat islands and water scarcity become more frequent in socioeconomically vulnerable peripheral areas, this qualitative case study analyzed how an agroecological community garden contributes to urban environmental resilience and efficient use of natural resources. Focusing on the Horta Comunitária Urbana Agroecológica Renova Vidas garden in Brazil, the study combined document analysis, non-participant observation and interviews, analyzed through content analysis. The garden was found to promote recovery of degraded land, conservation of natural resources and efficient water use, illustrating how local practices can contribute to urban resilience.