TY - JOUR
T1 - Monitoring sustainability of urban agriculture
T2 - Who is going to do it and how?
AU - Eiter, Sebastian
AU - Fjellstad, Wendy
AU - Van Schaik, Loes
PY - 2025/5
Y1 - 2025/5
N2 - Urban agriculture is often considered a tool to increase the economic, social and environmental sustainability of cities and city food systems. However, sustainability is difficult to measure, resulting in debate about how sustainable urban agriculture truly is. There is therefore a lack of incentive to promote urban agriculture or protect existing initiatives that are threatened by development pressure on urban land. Monitoring the sustainability impact of urban agriculture could provide evidence and enable politicians and decision makers to make informed decisions about whether and where to prioritise different forms of urban agriculture above competing interests. We used case examples from five European cities to identify the challenges involved in monitoring urban agriculture, from selecting indicators and gathering data, to using the results. We found large differences in approach in terms of what topics to monitor and who was responsible, who gathered the data and when, what data was recorded and how they were stored, and how findings were disseminated or published. Based on these experiences, we recommend stronger involvement of existing interest groups and educational institutions in monitoring urban agriculture, and promotion of convenient tools for data collection by citizen science and for long-term data storage.
AB - Urban agriculture is often considered a tool to increase the economic, social and environmental sustainability of cities and city food systems. However, sustainability is difficult to measure, resulting in debate about how sustainable urban agriculture truly is. There is therefore a lack of incentive to promote urban agriculture or protect existing initiatives that are threatened by development pressure on urban land. Monitoring the sustainability impact of urban agriculture could provide evidence and enable politicians and decision makers to make informed decisions about whether and where to prioritise different forms of urban agriculture above competing interests. We used case examples from five European cities to identify the challenges involved in monitoring urban agriculture, from selecting indicators and gathering data, to using the results. We found large differences in approach in terms of what topics to monitor and who was responsible, who gathered the data and when, what data was recorded and how they were stored, and how findings were disseminated or published. Based on these experiences, we recommend stronger involvement of existing interest groups and educational institutions in monitoring urban agriculture, and promotion of convenient tools for data collection by citizen science and for long-term data storage.
U2 - 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2025.105300
DO - 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2025.105300
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85215361749
SN - 0169-2046
VL - 257
JO - Landscape and Urban Planning
JF - Landscape and Urban Planning
M1 - 105300
ER -