Adaptive design model for the integration of urban agriculture in the sustainable development of cities. A case study in northern Spain

Abstract

Cities face major sustainability challenges but they also have the potential to provide solutions. The scientific community attributes urban agriculture a multi-functional character by virtue of its ability to provide a huge variety of ecosystem services relevant to urban sustainability and resilience. However, this scientific knowledge has not just reached urban planning and urban design planners and translates into the absence of a determined commitment to incorporate agriculture in the city. In this paper, we developed a transdisciplinary applied research for inserting urban agriculture into the design of environmentally sustainable and socially resilient cities. Supported by the European Union LIFE Program in the city of Lugo, Spain, we establish a framework that integrates scientific knowledge, professional practice and the participation of stakeholders and decision-makers to promote the design of an innovative agricultural space with demonstrative character, easily correctable, adaptable and replicable in other cities. The battery of ecosystem service indicators created to monitor and evaluate the proposal will, in turn, quantify the effective provision of ecosystem services by the design of the urban agricultural space and to help gaining support of decision-makers and citizens for urban agriculture.