Research & reports

Simon Bell · The International Journal of Healthy Space · Europe

This paper reflects on the evolution of research into the links between landscape and human health and wellbeing in Europe since 2000. It charts how the field developed through major initiatives like COST Actions and European research framework projects, coalescing into an established evidence base connecting green and blue spaces with human health, wellbeing, and policy action. The author offers a personal perspective on the trajectory of this research over the past two decades, based on direct involvement and lessons learned.

María Roo, Cecilia Herbón, Juan Pedro Martín‐Sanz, María Teresa Barral, Remigio Paradelo Núñez · Journal of Soils and Sediments · Spain (Santiago de Compostela)

This study analyzed the chemical extractability and bioaccessibility of five trace metals (Pb, Cu, Zn, Ni, Cr) in 55 urban soils from Santiago de Compostela, Spain, across various land uses. The availability of trace metals in these soils was found to be very low. Plant-available and bioaccessible Cu and Zn were higher in urban garden soils compared to other uses, supporting hypotheses that Cu, Pb, and Zn originate from anthropogenic pollution.

Antonio Peña‐Fernández, M. Carmen Lobo, María de los Ángeles Peña, Guillermo Torrado Durán, Mark D. Evans, Tiziana Sgamma, Tomás Cámara Pastor, Gurminderjeet S. Jagdev · Journal of Xenobiotics · United Kingdom

This study evaluated hazardous metal(loid)s in 121 wild mushroom fruiting-body units collected from urban and peri-urban green spaces in Leicester/Leicestershire, UK. Copper, manganese, and zinc were detected in all units, while cadmium and lead were found in 117/121 and 106/121 units respectively, indicating the widespread presence of these contaminants. Taxon-level profiles showed marked heterogeneity, and under a 300 g fresh-weight week−1 consumption scenario, cadmium represented 47.3% of the EFSA tolerable weekly intake in the pooled edible population and 50.9% in Agaricus bitorquis.

Anna C. Catania, Carmen Trischitta · Design Studies · Italy

This paper examined the role of design as a catalyst in experiential food education through the Curortò project, a therapeutic garden established within the G. Di Cristina Children's Hospital. Employing a participatory action research methodology, the project involved hospitalized children, healthcare professionals, educators, and local community actors in a collaborative design process. Detailed observation, field diaries, and qualitative interviews provided evidence of significant improvements in children's understanding of seasonal food cycles, resource management, and circular economy principles, accompanied by reduced stress levels and increased operational autonomy.

Rose Jennings · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United Kingdom (Glasgow)

Helen Traill's book, "The Practice of Collective Escape," presents ethnographic work over six years in Glasgow, Scotland, following two community growing sites. The book critically examines urban agriculture projects as "Petri dishes for individual and community transformation," exploring concepts of inclusion, individual escape, and political activism, and highlighting social complexities and issues of inclusion and exclusion.

Pascale Darras, Henri Santiago Sanz · VST - Vie sociale et traitements · France (Toulouse)

Since 2014, the "Japaré" shared garden at the Gérard Marchant psychiatric hospital in Toulouse, France, has served as a unique third place. It welcomes a diverse group of volunteers, including patients, professionals, children, and families, offering a space for voluntary market gardening or simply relaxation, without specific programs or obligations.

Agnieszka Klucznik-Tӧrő · Economics and Environment · Europe

This research investigated whether vertical gardens can effectively reduce urban air pollution, using Cracow as an example. Field experimentation, biochemical and laboratory studies, statistical analysis, and quantitative techniques were applied using plant species such as fennel spike, lemon balm, thyme, chives, dill, and common ivy. The analysis proved that a significant level of phytoremediation of air pollutants can be achieved with vertical gardens.

Lucy C. Michaels, María Puig de la Bellacasa · Environmental Humanities · United Kingdom

This article explores how soil care practices in urban gardening contribute to a sense of ecological belonging, focusing on diverse communities of urban growers from uprooted and migrant backgrounds in a city of the British East Midlands. Based on interviews and fieldwork, it shows how material, affective, and ethical relations in soil care may offer a distinct opening to more-than-human relations of belonging to/with land. Growers repair and nourish soil, connect to pasts and futures of urban land, and navigate affective and ethical ambivalences, reconfiguring place, identity, and more-than-human community.

Beth Myers · University of Liverpool · United Kingdom

This thesis investigates how fresh greens from controlled environment urban agriculture can support children and families at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. The study used an action research approach, including observations and playful interventions like recipe cards and tasting events, to understand engagement barriers and promote nutritious food. Evaluation based on fieldnotes, distribution counts, and informal feedback indicated that small, low-cost materials can improve the atmosphere of clinical spaces and facilitate conversations about food.

Rose Jennings · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · United Kingdom (Glasgow)

Helen Traill explores the social complexities of community growing projects based on six years of ethnographic work in Glasgow. She followed two community growing sites during the Brexit transition and the COVID-19 pandemic, examining concepts such as inclusion and exclusion, freedom, social justice, and political activism in urban agriculture projects. This study critically looks at gardens as sites for individual and community transformation.

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.

Katalin Horotán, Jana Táborská · Repository of the Academy's Library (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) · Europe

Against the background of children's gradually weakening connection to nature amid spreading urban lifestyles and digitalization, this paper presents the concept of "accessible nature," which places direct, local experience of nature at the center of environmental education. The described program, "The World of Our Garden" (Kertünk világa), uses urban gardens as learning environments and offers modular activities grounded in experiential and inquiry-based learning. Through observation and hands-on activities, students gain insight into natural processes while developing scientific thinking, an emotional connection to nature, and cooperative skills. Using examples, the paper shows how a schoolyard or community garden in an urban setting can become a complex, motivating learning space for sustainability education.

Florio Furno M, Tramontini M, Gaggero E, Rigoletto M, Fabbri D, Malandrino M, Calza P, Varese GC, Spina F · Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology · Europe

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) persist in soil and resist common recovery strategies, which matters for urban agriculture because such sites are highly exposed to varied pollution sources — and because that exposure shapes how urban growing is perceived. This study examined the fungi already present in polluted soil intended for urban agriculture, aiming to build an active microbial consortium able to transform the pollutants and lower site toxicity. The mycobiota was dominated by Ascomycota; among 28 isolated taxa across 16 genera, Aspergillus, Scedosporium, Trichoderma and Fusarium were the most abundant. Isolates differed markedly, between and within species, in their ability to grow in the presence of low- and high-molecular-weight PAHs, and some produced biosurfactants. Combining this with the ability to grow on carriers, six fungi were selected for in situ soil remediation, and biostimulation was compared with bioaugmentation using strains in co-culture. The best results came from a consortium that also showed high tolerance to high-molecular-weight PAHs. Chronic ecotoxicity testing showed no effect on Eisenia fetida except under biostimulation, which produced a 44 per cent decrease in toxicity. A mix of millet and canary seeds worked as an efficient fungal carrier.

· Wikipedia · United Kingdom

This Wikipedia article covers Robert Hart (1913-2000), a British horticulturist credited as the pioneer of temperate-climate forest gardening. He converted a 0.12-acre (500 sqm) orchard at his Shropshire home into a model forest garden structured in seven layers (canopy, low-tree, shrub, herbaceous, ground-cover, rhizosphere, and vertical/climber). The article also notes he followed a roughly 90% raw vegan diet, citing the Hippocratic maxim to 'let food be thy medicine.'

· Wikipedia · Germany

Moritz Schreber (1808–1861) was a German medical doctor and university lecturer born in Leipzig, who became director of the Leipzig Heilanstalt in 1844 and wrote about children's health and the social effects of urbanization. The eponymous 'Schreber movement' arose only after his death; the first Schrebergarten was established in 1864 by Leipzig school principal Ernst Innozenz Hauschild, who leased land for children's physical exercise.

NHS England · NHS England · United Kingdom

NHS England's official page on 'social prescribing', a form of personalised care in which GPs and other health professionals refer patients via link workers to non-clinical, community-based support (group activities, advice services, etc.), centred on the question 'what matters to me?'. It targets people with one or more long-term conditions, those needing low-level mental health support, people who are socially isolated or lonely, and those with complex social needs. NHS England set a goal of at least 900,000 people being referred to social prescribing by 2023/24.

Centre for Mental Health · Centre for Mental Health · United Kingdom

This Centre for Mental Health article describes Sydenham Garden, a community resource in Lewisham, London, whose green space supports mental health through contact with nature, growing and cooking food, and creative activities. About 370 people a year join as 'co-workers' on placements of up to 12 months, and the piece frames the garden as an antidote to loneliness, isolation and exclusion.

Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) · Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) · United Kingdom

A donation page for the RHS Campaign for School Gardening, stating that over 30,800 schools and groups across the UK already receive support and around 2.1 million children take part in gardening activities through the campaign.

· Wikipedia (English) · Germany

The article on the German food crisis of 1916–17 during the First World War. It states that the Allied blockade reduced food supplies by 33 per cent and that the civilian diet fell to 1,560 calories a day by the summer of 1917 and to 1,000 calories a day in winter, against the 3,000 calories said to be needed by a healthy adult male. The name comes from the substitution of fodder swedes (turnips) for the failed potato crop. Female mortality is given as rising 11.5 per cent in 1916 and 30 per cent in 1917 against pre-war rates, and the historian G. J. Meyer is cited, quoting a Berlin physician, for the claim that eighty thousand children died of starvation in 1916. The historian Avner Offer is cited for the estimate that one-fifth to one-third of food could be obtained only through illegal channels.

Wilkens J., Mombo S., Dumat C. · Urban Science · France (Toulouse)

Examines 11 years of collective urban gardens in the Toulouse region through the lens of global health—encompassing human well-being, soil health, and interspecies interactions—as a driver of agroecological transitions among gardeners.

Amato-Lourenço L., Bertoldi C., van Praagh M., Rillig M. · Environmental Pollution · Germany (Berlin)

Investigated vertical distribution of microplastics over 90 days in three Berlin allotment gardens; fibers dominated and peaked in surface layers, with deposition increasing with precipitation and PM2.5 and decreasing with wind velocity.

Darcy · Health & Social Care in the Community · England, United Kingdom

A before-and-after cohort evaluation of nature-based interventions delivered via green social prescribing referral across English 'test and learn' sites, comparing participants' mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

Noelia Fernández-Salido, Alfonso Gallego-Valadés, Carlos Serra-Castells, Jorge Garcés-Ferrer · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Spain

Analyzes comprehensive benefits of urban gardens for senior active aging. Demonstrates impact on addressing multimorbidity, disability, frailty, and improving mental well-being and social participation.

Chris Blythe, Silvio Caputo, Michael Hardman, Paul Milbourne, Mina Samangooei, Victoria Schoen · · United Kingdom

This chapter provides a narrative review of how urban food growing in the UK responded to past crises and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses the positive impacts of urban food growing on individual, household, and community resilience, well-being, environment, and local food systems during the pandemic. The chapter suggests that further recognition and support for urban food growing would improve its ability to respond to future crises.

Juliane Forßmann, Simon Goebel · Zeitschrift für Flüchtlingsforschung · Germany

An urban gardening project in a residential facility for up to 230 refugees in Germany aims to counteract precarious living conditions. While the garden offers a low-threshold space for knowledge exchange on resource-saving cultivation, biodiversity, and health promotion, this paper also reflects on the project's limits.