Assessing urban greening strategies as systemic solutions for social challenges of urbanization. Development of a conceptual evaluation framework and experimenting with using the example of edible cities in Germany.
Final Report Abstract
In the light of current challenges such as climate change or social segregation, the concept of edible cities is becoming increasingly important in urban planning and science. The basic idea of edible cities is to use public spaces to provide free food for urban residents. However, to evaluate the contribution of edible cities to urbanization challenges, there is a lack of integrative evaluation approaches. In this project, an assessment concept was developed to evaluate the implementation and impact potentials of edible cities. The concept was tested in three German case studies (Andernach, Haar, Munich). Expert interviews and standardized population surveys showed that edible cities can contribute to socio-spatial and socio-ecological sustainability transformation by enhancing the attractiveness of cities and promoting sustainable human-food relationships. To successfully implement edible cities, a mix of topdown and bottom-up approaches is useful. Frontrunner cities like Andernach are important role models to inspire other municipalities to implement the concept. The results show further that edible cities comprise a mosaic of different forms of urban agriculture. However, knowledge about the advantages and disadvantages of these is fragmented and a systematic comparison of these is lacking. Therefore, we evaluated in a continuation project the sustainability of different forms of urban food production based on an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and on the example of vertical farming and community supported agriculture. In a standardized online survey, scientific experts from Europe selected relevant (sub)criteria for sustainable urban agriculture, whose importance was weighted in a second online survey by German non-governmental organizations, practitioners and city administrations. The results showed that experts attributed the highest weights to the ecological dimension and the sub-criteria of microclimate and hydrology regulation, species diversity and circular economy, followed by the social (education, community building and civic participation) and economic dimensions (food quality/safety, food affordability, local value chains). The exemplary evaluation based on the AHP and a literature analysis showed that community supported agriculture can be classified as the more sustainable form of urban agriculture in all three dimensions compared to vertical agriculture. By focusing on social justice and solidarity, community supported agriculture mainly contributes to social sustainability. Future research should explore hybrid forms of community supported vertical agriculture that combines goals of social justice, food quality, and ecological food self-sufficiency.
Publications
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The Role of Urban Agriculture as a Nature-Based Solution: A Review for Developing a Systemic Assessment Framework. Sustainability, 10(6), 1937.
Artmann, Martina & Sartison, Katharina
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Ecosystem Services of Urban Agriculture: Perceptions of Project Leaders, Stakeholders and the General Public. Sustainability, 12(24), 10446.
Sanyé-Mengual, Esther; Specht, Kathrin; Vávra, Jan; Artmann, Martina; Orsini, Francesco & Gianquinto, Giorgio
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Edible cities – An innovative nature-based solution for urban sustainability transformation? An explorative study of urban food production in German cities. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 49, 126604.
Sartison, Katharina & Artmann, Martina
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Essbare Stadt Andernach: Ergebnisse einer Befragung von Bürgerinnen und Bürgern. eNewsletter Wegweiser Bürgergesellschaft 7/2020 vom 22.7.2020
Artmann, M.
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The role of edible cities supporting sustainability transformation – A conceptual multi-dimensional framework tested on a case study in Germany. Journal of Cleaner Production, 255, 120220.
Artmann, Martina; Sartison, Katharina & Vávra, Jan
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Urban Agriculture—More Than Food Production. Cities and Nature, 75-176. Springer International Publishing.
Artmann, Martina & Breuste, Jürgen
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Introduction to the Special Issue “A Systemic Perspective on Urban Food Supply: Assessing Different Types of Urban Agriculture”. Sustainability, 13(7), 3798.
Artmann, Martina; Specht, Kathrin; Vávra, Jan & Rommel, Marius
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Umsetzung und Auswirkungen essbarer Städte. Eine naturbasierte Lösung für gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen der Urbanisierung? pnd 1, 231-247.
Artmann, M. & Sartison, K.
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Urban gardening as a means for fostering embodied urban human–food connection? A case study on urban vegetable gardens in Germany. Sustainability Science, 16(3), 967-981.
Artmann, Martina; Sartison, Katharina & Ives, Christopher D.
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Introducing a procedure to perform the Analytic Hierarchy Process with own survey data obtained from SoSci Survey platform using R-package ahpsurvey (v0.3pre)
Kasper, B. & John, H.
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Survey data of an integrative evaluation framework for assessing the sustainability of different types of urban agriculture. Zenodo dataset
John, H. & Artmann, M.
