The need for better nutrient management has spurred efforts towards more comprehensive recycling of nutrients contained in human excreta to agriculture. Research in this direction has intensified throughout the past years, continuously unfolding new knowledge and technologies. The present review aspires to provide a systematic synthesis of the field by providing an accessible overview of terminology, recovery pathways and treatment options, and products rendered by treatment. Our synthesis suggests that, rather than focusing on a specific recovery pathway or product and on a limited set of nutrients, there is scope for exploring how to maximize nutrient recovery by combining individual pathways and products and including a broader range of nutrients. To this end, finding ways to more effectively share and consolidate knowledge and information on recovery pathways and products would be beneficial. The present review aims to provide a template that aims to facilitate designing human excreta management for maximum nutrient recovery, and that can serve as foundation for organizing and categorizing information for more effective sharing and consolidation.

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Cities are increasingly targeted as centers for sustainable development and innovation of food systems. Urban agriculture (UA) is advocated by some as a multi-faceted approach to help achieve urban sustainability goals, as it provides possible social, economic and environmental benefits. The role of UA in restoring resource cycles receives increasing attention, especially with regard to assimilating urban waste. However, there is little information on how nutrients are managed in UA in industrialized countries. To examine nutrient management in UA, data was collected from a total of 25 ground-based UA initiatives in the Netherlands on i) preferences for types of fertilizers, and ii) quantity and quality of fertilizers used including nutrient composition and organic matter content. The main inputs at urban farms were compost and manure, high in organic matter content. The total nutrient inputs were compared to nutrient demand based on crop nutrient uptake in order to determine nutrient balances. Results show that mean nutrient inputs exceeded mean crop demand by roughly 450% for total nitrogen, 600% for phosphorus and 250% for potassium. Mean inputs for plant-available nitrogen were comparable to crop uptake values. The surpluses, particularly for phosphorus, are higher than fertilizer application limits used for conventional farming in The Netherlands. While nutrient input calculations were subject to several uncertainties, e.g., due to lack of accuracy of the data supplied by the farmers, results show a salient indication of over-fertilization and thus a suboptimal nutrient use. If UA continues to expand across cities these observed nutrient surpluses may pose a risk for local surface waters and groundwater as well as soil quality. The need to improve nutrient management in UA is evident. Soil tests, harvest logging and book keeping of nutrient inputs would improve data quality and may help balance nutrient inputs with nutrient outputs.

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Recovering nutrients from human excreta and wastewater has been receiving increasing attention as a means to supplement or replace synthetic fertilizer production. Apart from technologies for nutrient recovery at centralized wastewater treatment plants, numerous decentralized, source-separated sanitation systems, also known as new sanitation systems, have been developed to facilitate recovery. Decision-making for the planning and implementation of new sanitation systems would benefit from a spatially explicit inventory of nutrient hotspots in urban areas.To provide visual representations of nutrient loads, we developed a methodology that combines spatial-temporal modeling with geographic information system analysis, and used it for the city of Amsterdam. The methodology is new in the field of nutrient mapping, especially at the smallest geographical scale: building. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium loads and hotspots are mapped at both building and neighborhood scale, drawing attention to the need for multiple scale analyses in decision-making. This study concludes with a discussion on the potential to further develop the method proposed to include more detailed and verified data and to identify nutrient hotspots that are promising as nutrient recovery sites with new sanitation systems. K E Y W O R D Sgeographic information system (GIS), nutrient recycling, phosphorus, resource recovery, urban metabolism, wastewater