Research & reports

Stokman, Antje, Khokhlova, Viktoria, Peters, Lasse, König, Bettina, Lange, Doris, Bürig, Lara, Esche, Finn, Feldmann, Falko, Quambusch, Mona · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Germany

A German report on an urban agriculture innovation district being developed in Hamburg as part of the Horner Geest landscape axis and the urban development of the new Gartenstadt Öjendorf. An interdisciplinary research team from HafenCity University (landscape planning), the Julius Kühn Institute (horticultural sciences), and the University of Kassel (agricultural economics and sustainability research) is developing scenarios for a productive horticultural park and testing them on a test and demonstration site. The project aims to establish innovative forms of urban agriculture that increase the presence and perception of farming in urban space and promote direct interaction between city residents and professional agricultural actors; this report covers the project on the occasion of its first scenario workshop.

Marco Focacci, Christina Schäffer, Isabella De Meo, Alessandro Paletto, Fabio Salbitano · Urban forestry & urban greening · Europe

A study of urban forest gardens—multilayered, mainly perennial edible intercropping systems—in Sweden, aimed at a national inventory, identifying the drivers behind their establishment, and understanding their contribution to urban sustainability policies. The researchers identified 30 forest gardens across 10 cities and conducted site visits and stakeholder interviews, finding three main origin types: grassroots movements, schools, and municipal officials, each informed and trained by "knowledge hubs" (associations, education centres and professionals). Social network analysis showed knowledge hubs were pivotal to establishment and information circulation, while few connections existed among other actors. Stakeholders rated cultural ecosystem services—education, community building, recreation and aesthetic value (8.7/10)—higher than regulating services such as biodiversity and climate regulation (7.9/10) and provisioning services (6.5/10). Interviews also identified legal burdens on land management and use, financial sustainability challenges for both bottom-up and top-down forest gardens, and a lack of skilled labor.

Kolawole Farinloye, Grzegorz M. Józefaciuk, Samson O. Ojo, Ibukun A. Ayodele, Mayowa A. Aduloju · Journal of Natural Resource Conservation and Management · United Kingdom

A study evaluated the agritourism potential of Mudchute Park and Farm, an urban farm in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom, using a mixed-methods approach that combined qualitative assessment of the farm's existing infrastructure and programming with quantitative analysis of its plant and animal biodiversity (2025). Structured data was used to model potential offerings such as educational programs, hands-on workshops and thematic tours. The farm's collection of rare-breed animals and native and cultivated plant species was identified as a base for development, and the study proposed recommendations including a farm-to-fork culinary experience, expanded seasonal festival programming, and leveraging the farm's position as a rural site within a major city.

Sebastian Eiter, Wendy Fjellstad, Loes van Schaik · Landscape and Urban Planning · Europe

Drawing on case examples from five European cities, a 2025 study identified the challenges involved in monitoring the sustainability of urban agriculture, from selecting indicators and gathering data to using the results. Urban agriculture is often positioned as a tool to increase the economic, social and environmental sustainability of cities and city food systems, yet sustainability is difficult to measure, fueling debate about how sustainable urban agriculture truly is and leaving a lack of incentive to promote it or protect existing initiatives threatened by development pressure on urban land. Comparing the five cities revealed large differences in what topics were monitored, who was responsible, who gathered data and when, what data was recorded and how it was stored, and how findings were disseminated or published. Based on these findings, the study recommends stronger involvement of existing interest groups and educational institutions in monitoring, along with promotion of convenient tools for citizen-science data collection and long-term data storage.

Mieke Lopes Cardozo, Bas van den Berg, Koen Rens Wessels · · Europe

A narrative account of involvement with FRIS, a community within the University of Amsterdam working on education innovation for a fair, resilient, and inclusive society. The speaker, Mieke, describes being invited to coordinate and supervise a round of thematic teaching-innovation scholarships—organized jointly by the university's Teaching and Learning Centre and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies as part of the university's strategic plan—and to help build a learning community oriented toward more regenerative ways of learning and working.

Jacek Antonkiewicz, Iwona Paśmionka, Grzegorz Szychowski · Soil Science Annual · Poland

Following a flood that inundated allotment gardens in Nysa, southern Poland, for up to 14 days after the water rose on 14 September 2024, researchers analyzed 12 soil samples collected in early spring 2025 from two allotment garden sites. Most soils were found limed and disinfected, with high organic matter but low total potassium, sodium and sulfur. Zinc and copper concentrations exceeded the average for Polish arable soils, pointing to use of materials enriched with these elements.

Zuzana Strculová · Revue of Social Sevices / Revue sociálnych služieb · Europe

An article framing community gardens as spaces where people from different social groups meet to co-create and share space, arguing they function not only as ecological or urban projects but as effective tools for social work — particularly in community building, social inclusion and strengthening intergenerational ties. While community gardens often emerge as grassroots civic initiatives, their operation involves a range of actors: local residents, social workers, educators, non-profit organizations, city governments and even businesses — a diversity that, the article argues, is why gardens can be understood as "microworlds of collaboration." Drawing on foreign examples of good practice, it illustrates how community gardens can serve as effective tools in inclusive, environmental and participatory social work.

Alex Axinte, Carmen Rafanell, Bogdan Iancu · Environmental Sociology · Europe

This study investigates the persistence of "gardening by the bloc," an informal urban gardening practice in the green spaces of collective housing districts in post-socialist Bucharest, Romania. Often dismissed in public discourse as a leftover of socialist-era survival strategies, the research instead reconsiders it as an everyday social interaction that supports communities amid urban transformation. Drawing on Tsing and De Angelis, the study frames the practice as a local form of "latent commons" reflecting broader socio-political shifts in a post-socialist city. Based on qualitative research, it documents how residents use, adapt and manage these green spaces and their relations with institutional actors under increasingly neoliberal governance, arguing that the overlap between a market-oriented regulatory project, inherited socialist structures, and collective spatial practices has shaped a distinct way of living together. As an emerging form of urban commons, gardening by the bloc can sustain shared communal practices against an increasingly individualized society and lay groundwork for bottom-up regeneration of housing estates, but the article also reveals contradictions inherent to latent commons, including internal tensions and ambiguities.

Johanna Bock, Márcio Zamboni Neske, Martin Krauß, Andrea Dombrowski, Jörg Oehlmann · Environmental Sciences Europe · Europe

Focusing on small water bodies in private urban gardens, this study examined whether chemical pollution limits insect diversity, given that gardens make up a significant share of urban green area and can serve as important habitats and stepping stones for insects, while pesticides, fertilizers and chemical run-off from building materials can strongly affect habitat quality and insect biodiversity. Garden pond toxicity was assessed using in vitro and in vivo methods and chemical screening. Of 17 ponds examined, only one water sample and one sediment sample were found non-toxic in a bioluminescence assay with Aliivibrio fischeri. Enhanced dioxin-like activity was measured in seven water and ten sediment samples using a reporter gene assay with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and most water extracts showed mutagenic potential in the Ames fluctuation assay (Salmonella typhimurium strains YG1041 and YG1042), while most sediment extracts were not mutagenic. Increased larval mortality of Chironomus riparius occurred in five water-sediment systems built from pond samples, correlating positively with in vitro water toxicity and with concentrations of benzothiazole derivatives measured by LC-HRMS, likely originating from EPDM rubber pond liners. Substance composition differed significantly between house and allotment gardens, with higher concentrations measured in allotment ponds. The study concludes that chemical pollution in private urban gardens may have been underestimated to date, and that pond toxicity can severely affect insect populations, warranting further study.

Yu Huan, Steffen Nijhuis, Nico Tillie · Journal of Cleaner Production · Europe

Using Rotterdam as a case study, researchers combined machine-learning suitability modeling (XGBoost with SHAP), deep-learning land-use simulation, and monetary ecosystem-service valuation to compare three scenarios for 2030 and 2050: business-as-usual, suitability-based autonomous transformation, and a suitability-based landscape-approach transformation. Suitability-guided scenarios outperformed business-as-usual, with the landscape-approach scenario producing the most stable multi-decadal outcomes for regulating and cultural services, but provisioning services could plateau or decline when ecological protection constraints limited intensive production.

Janine Opitz, Monika Egerer · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Germany

An online survey of 111 responding projects from Germany's urban community gardening network examined the presence and diversity of nut tree species and the motivations and challenges for adopting and expanding them. Nut trees existed in almost half of the responding projects, but in small numbers with low yields, hindered by limited space, local laws and regulations, and interaction with other garden species, and only 50% of projects planned to incorporate more nut tree species in the future.

Emmanouel Arizanis, Dimitrios Kyriazis, Vassilis Barkoukis · Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning · Europe

This study tested the effectiveness of a specially designed school garden project aimed at improving intrinsic motivation (enjoyment, satisfaction/effort), social skills (responsibility, cooperation), and behavior (attitude, intention) as components of environmental behavior, among 152 fourth- and sixth-grade primary school pupils in Greece (M = 10.89 years, SD = 0.99), assigned to intervention and control groups. Pupils were tested before the intervention, at its end, and two months afterward. Over an eight-week intervention of two hours per week aligned with the Greek school curriculum, the intervention group attended the school garden project while the control group attended unrelated projects. The analysis found the program had a long-lasting effect on pupils' environmental behavior.

Monika Onyszkiewicz, Marta Sylla · Sustainability · Poland

This study surveys the current state of active Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups in Poland, identifying active CSA farms and analyzing their offers, reach, and member characteristics, motivation, and involvement. As of when the study was conducted in 2023/2024, 13 food-producing farmers were inventoried across 35 groups, reaching an estimated 1,200 people. Drawing on the experience of CSA communities elsewhere in Europe, the study concludes that an umbrella organization is needed to network Poland's CSA community and support active farmers through advocacy, education, and coordination of CSA development at the national level.

Małgorzata SIEMIONEK-RUSKAŃ, Małgorzata Siemionek · Journal of Environmental Management and Tourism · Europe

This study examines the integration of environmental priorities into participatory budgeting (PB) processes in selected European cities in Poland, Spain, and Portugal, using a qualitative case-study approach supported by literature review and document analysis. Case studies from Warsaw and Gdańsk (Poland), Barcelona and Valencia (Spain), and Lisbon and Porto (Portugal) were analyzed, drawing on academic sources, municipal budget reports, and environmental planning documents to examine how PB in each city has funded projects addressing green infrastructure, waste management, energy efficiency, sustainable transport, and climate adaptation. The study finds that participatory budgeting in these cities has funded projects including community gardens, green roofs, riverbank restoration, and bicycle infrastructure.

Christos Ioannides, Alexandra Tsatsou, Daniel Mamais, Simos Malamis, Georgios Tsimiklis, Dimitra Tsiakou, Z. Tsiropoulos, Mariarina Michailidou, Apostolos Tzourtziotis, Christina Karaberi, Orestis Raptis, Constantinos Noutsopoulos · Urban Water Journal · Europe

This study presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a city-wide pilot of circular urban agriculture across 31 locations in Trikala, Greece. The pilots included rainwater harvesting, precision irrigation, composting, and an online monitoring platform. Assessed through a mixed-methods approach using 20 environmental, economic, and social indicators, the system showed stable technical performance and effectiveness in reducing resource consumption.

Jarosław Chmielewski, Barbara Gworek, Alicja Walosik, Magdalena Florek-Łuszczki · Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine · Poland

Soil (N=196) and root vegetable (N=94) samples from 16 allotment gardens in Warsaw, Poland, were analyzed for manganese, zinc, copper, lead and cadmium and assessed for health risk. Parsley, carrots, beetroots and celery grown in these gardens accumulated elevated levels of all five metals, and the health risk assessment found an increased risk of carcinogenic effects from cadmium and lead in consumers of these root vegetables; the authors conclude consumption of vegetables from the examined gardens should be very limited or eliminated from the diet entirely.

Anna Stage (17743305), Marie Caroline Vermund (11075551), Mads Bølling (6661577), Camilla Roed Otte (21175813), Alberte Laura Oest Müllertz (21175816), Peter Bentsen (3527732), Glen Nielsen (10468844), Peter Elsborg (8894495) · Figshare · Europe

This is the SPIRIT checklist for the FoodACT protocol, a multimethod, quasi-experimental study preregistered with ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT05839080) investigating how the existing Danish school garden program Gardens to Bellies (GtB), delivered at six locations across Region Zealand and Region of Southern Denmark, affects fourth-grade pupils' food literacy, climate change literacy, school motivation and physical activity. Approximately 1,600 pupils attending GtB form the intervention group and approximately 1,600 pupils from non-participating schools form the control group, with pupils in the eight-session program growing, preparing and cooking foods; outcomes will be measured via pre/post surveys, accelerometry in a 900-pupil subsample, text-message surveys and semi-structured and focus-group interviews, analyzed using linear mixed models and thematic analysis. As a protocol document, it describes study design rather than results.

Ylva Wallinder · Local Environment · Europe

A study of Gothenburg, Sweden, examines the city council's shift over the past decade from associational (collective) urban gardening toward entrepreneurial gardening on municipal land, promoted through a scheme called "from garden box to hectare" that draws residents into entrepreneurial training while taking municipal gardening classes. Analyzing the consequences of this commodification of urban sustainability projects, the study finds that socio-economic resources and social relations both limit and strengthen entrepreneurial gardening practices and participants' quality of life, and that perceived competition among gardeners has turned urban gardening into a lonely, precarious, and individualized activity compared with the formalized associational gardening the municipality previously promoted. The finding points to a mismatch between the local government's sustainability visions and gardeners' actual experience.

Ouiam Fatiha Boukharta, Loïc Sauvée, Fabiana Pena-Fabri, Leticia Chico-Santamarta, Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia · Cities · France

In Rouen, France, a two-level urban agriculture governance system—the metropolitan authority and the City of Rouen—was examined through 19 semi-structured interviews with project stakeholders. The two levels shared similar approaches to social aspects, education, fresh produce consumption, and the goal of long-term project viability, but differed in project selection criteria: the metropolis applied less strict requirements than the city regarding plot size and soil analysis.

· Wikipedia (español) · Spain

According to Spanish Wikipedia, the exact founding date of the Water Tribunal is unknown, though the most widely held theory dates it to around 960 CE, during the reign of a Caliph. It is made up of eight síndicos, one representing each irrigation community, one of whom generally serves a two-year term as president. It meets every Thursday at noon (except from Christmas to 6 January and on public holidays) at the 'Door of the Apostles' of Valencia Cathedral, with administrative meetings afterward at the Casa Vestuario on Plaza de la Virgen. It was inscribed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage on 30 September 2009.

· Viquipèdia (català) · Spain

According to Catalan Wikipedia, the irrigated farmland (horta) of Valencia took shape in the Middle Ages under Islamic rule through the construction of séquies (irrigation channels) and assuts (weirs). The main séquies of the Túria river have been governed since Islamic times by the Tribunal de les Aigües, inscribed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2009. Eight séquies in the Vega de València draw water from the Túria and have historically supported orange, vegetable and rice cultivation, but many now run beneath houses and streets, with rice farming described as being in crisis as farmland is converted to housing.

· Wikipedia (Italian) · Italy

Parco Nord Milano is a roughly 640-hectare regional park spanning seven municipalities north of Milan, recognized as a regional park by the Lombardy Region in 1975. It contains over 350 hectares of green space with more than 100 tree species and diverse wildlife, managed by a consortium of the participating municipalities. It serves as an example of large-scale peri-urban green infrastructure.

· Wikipedia (Italian) · Italy

Cascina Linterno originated as a 12th-century monastic rural settlement and is a 13th-century Lombard closed-courtyard farmhouse now owned by the City of Milan and run by the Associazione amici della Cascina Linterno for cultural and historical activities. It is traditionally identified as the poet Petrarch's residence during his time in Milan (1353-1361) and is protected under both monumental and landscape preservation decrees.

Ville de Paris · Ville de Paris · France

Official Ville de Paris page defining shared gardens as green spaces cultivated and run by residents, intended as places of intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange. About 15 educational gardens host children from 28 Paris educational facilities (nurseries, primary schools, after-school centers). Residents wishing to open a new garden must form an association and contact the city's 'Main Verte' team.

Global Generation · Global Generation · United Kingdom

An article by Global Generation reflecting on a decade of the Skip Garden — a mobile garden built from reused waste skips — in King's Cross, London, describing how it grew from six or seven skips into a space with rooftop planters, a polytunnel, and areas for herbs, vegetables, fruit trees, and composting.