A Geography of Rooftop Agriculture in 20 Projects

Zeeuw, H. de; Komisar, June; Sanyé‐Mengual, Esther; Kahane, Rémi; Gianquinto, Giorgio; Geoffriau, Emmanuel; Sia, Ching Sian; Rodríguez-Delfín, Alfredo; Tawk, Salwa Tohmé; Omari, Heshem el; Shah, S. L.; Montero, J.I.; Vishwanath, B. N.; Hegde, Rajendra; Iori, Luana; Banhazl, Jessie; Horne, C. Wendell; Osman, S. H. M.; Schuck, Carl Philipp; Puri, Viraj; Bass, Bryna; Coleman, Edwin “Pope”; Somerville, Chris; Fabrega, Pol; Pember, Mat; Asselin, Amelie; Ricardo, Omar; Nagai, Sergio Eiji; Chong-Phoon, Lyvenne; Lim, A; Lloyd, Maria; Liu, Shuang; Ruiz, Gloria Samperio; Throness, Arlene

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-57720-3_19

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…For example, crop irrigation and PV panel cleaning can exacerbate urban water shortage, collecting productive soil for RA requires cultivated soil from cropland (~220 km 2 ) equivalent to the area of Boston city, and decommissioned infrastructure can stress the waste treatment system. Given these debates on rooftop production, publicizing successful business models is of utmost importance, e.g., Gotham Greens in Chicago city 38 , emerging rooftop farms built on shopping malls in Chinese cities, and grid-connected urban RPV in Ningbo and Tianjin city 39 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal use of urban rooftops can synergize food and energy production objectives

Hu,

Yang,

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Urban rooftop agriculture (RA) and photovoltaics (RPV) offer sustainable solutions for energy-food systems in cities but compete for limited rooftop space. We explore the potential benefits (provisioning, economic, and environmental) and allocation strategy of RA and RPV across 13 million buildings in 124 Chinese cities, considering building height, age, function, rooftop type and occupation, and regional productivity. We found that RA yields superior economic benefits, while RPV excels in cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits. Prioritizing either RA or RPV compromises 70–100% of the above benefits brought by the other. An optimized allocation to maximize the overall benefits would retain >55% of their potential, meeting 14% (mean, 0.5–99% across cities) of urban vegetable needs and 5% (0.5–27% across cities) of the electricity needs. Such a scenario requires allocating 54% (varied 4–99% across cities) of the flat rooftop area to RA, and all remaining rooftops to RPV. Together, the productivity from rooftop RA and RPV are equivalent to 2.3×103 km2 of cropland and 86 Mt of coal, contribute 1.5% of the national GDP and reduce 1.6% of national greenhouse gas emissions (account for 0.1–33% of city levels), requiring considerable water (up to 18% of urban residential water use) and material demand (e.g., totalling 9 kt silver). By elucidating the benefits and resource costs of rooftop utilization, our findings can support synergetic decision-making to meet multiple sustainability goals in diverse cities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal use of urban rooftops can synergize food and energy production objectives

Hu,

Yang,

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…The most demanded skill focused on how to obtain resources (funding), which is a key aspect for keeping grassroots urban agriculture projects alive worldwide, such as community gardens [30]. This aspect is independent from the type of project.…”

Section: Global Users' Needs In Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Community Gardens Require Social Engagement and Training: A Users’ Needs Analysis in Europe

et al. 2019

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Urban gardens are spreading in many cities across Europe, with community gardening being a fundamental form of urban agriculture. While the literature reveals the essential role that community gardens can play in terms of learning and education, no studies have investigated the training needs for participants in community gardens to ensure their successful development. The goal of this article is to evaluate the training requirements of urban community gardens to ensure their successful implementation and their contribution to sustainability in European cities. Two questionnaires of users’ needs analysis were designed and implemented in Berlin, Bologna, Budapest, and Cartagena. The results unveiled the need to re-enforce the training in the formation and community building phases of community gardens towards ensuring the creation of an engaged gardening community to maintain activity, particularly for top-down activities (e.g., research-related gardens). Users claimed their need for being trained on crop management skills (e.g., maintenance, bed preparation, organic practices) and on communication skills to further disseminate their activity, thereby increasing the potential for citizen engagement. Such requirements could be overcome with the creation of urban gardens networks, where experiences and knowledge are shared among practitioners. Policy recommendations are provided based on the outputs of this study.

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