Tools for edible cities : a review of tools for planning and assessing edible nature-based solutions

Mino, Eric (author), Pueyo-Ros, Josep (author), Škerjanec, Mateja (author), Castellar, Joana A. C. (author), Viljoen, André (author), Istenič, Darja (author), Atanasova, Nataša (author), Bohn, Katrin (author), Comas, Joaquim (author)

In the last five years, European research and innovation programmes have prioritised the development of online catalogues and tools (handbooks, models, etc.) to facilitate the implementation and monitoring of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). However, only a few catalogues and toolkits within European programmes are directly related to mainstreaming of NBS for food production (i.e., edible NBS). Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to present existing NBS tools through the eyes of productive urban landscapes. We reviewed 32 projects related to NBS and 50 tools were identified and characterised. Then, the six tools already available and provided indicators were further analysed in terms of their format and knowledge domains. Our main conclusion demonstrates that there is a lack of tools capable of supporting users for planning and implementing edible NBS; calculating the food potential of a city and/or of individual edible NBS, including the needed resources for implementation and operation (water, nutrients, energy); and assessing their urban design value, environmental and socio-economic impacts. Moreover, when they do exist, there is a resistance to share the models and equations behind the tools to allow other projects to reuse or validate them, a fact which is contrary to the open science principles upheld by many public research agencies.

• Language: English
• Keywords: nature-based solutions, productive urban landscapes, decision support systems, edible cities, urban agriculture, circular economy, sustainable development, environmental protection
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.02 - Review Article
• Organization: FGG - Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 17 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 13, iss. 17, art. 2366
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-131842
• UDC: 502/504
• ISSN on article: 2073-4441
• DOI: 10.3390/w13172366
• COBISS.SI-ID: 75355651
• Publication date in RUL: 04.10.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Water
• Shortened title: Water
• Publisher: Molecular Diversity Preservation International - MDPI
• ISSN: 2073-4441
• COBISS.SI-ID: 36731653

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 01.09.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: sonaravne rešitve, produktivna urbana okolja, sistem za podporo odločanju, užitna mesta, urbano kmetijstvo, krožno gospodarstvo, trajnostni pristop, varovanje okolja

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: H2020
• Project number: 776665
• Name: Edible Cities Network Integrating Edible City Solutions for social resilient and sustainably productive cities
• Acronym: EdiCitNet

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: COST
• Project number: CA17133
• Acronym: Circular City