News

New publication in “Sustainable Cities and Society”

8 May 2023

Title: The potential of local food, energy, and water production systems on urban rooftops considering consumption patterns and urban morphology / The external resource dependency of urban areas results in the externalization of environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Implementing food, energy and water production systems on urban rooftops (roof mosaics) can potentially help cities become more self-sufficient but depends on the city's urban morphology.

Impactes de les infraestructures verdes urbanes en la qualitat de l’aire

28 March 2023

S'ha preparat un breu resum de l'estat de l'art i consideracions per l'Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona sobre els impactes de les infraestructures verdes urbanes en la qualitat de l'aire. A continuació, es descriuen alguns dels punts que es tracten en aquest document.

The future of urban agriculture from a social and metabolic perspective

23 March 2023

On the 17th of March 2023, URBAG conducted a workshop session in the second Edible City Network Conference held in Barcelona. The session was focused in presenting a comprehensive vision of the current urban agriculture challenges and opportunities, by considering both social and environmental  perspectives, while employing the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona as case study.

Agricultural perspectives in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona: results from co-creating desired scenarios and the pathways to achieve them

7 March 2023

The agricultural land of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona has been reduced from 20% to 8-9% over the past decades, despite urban gardening being supported by municipal actions. Urban agriculture constitutes a nature-based solution to several societal challenges.

New publication in “Science of The Total Environment”

7 November 2022

Title: Displaying geographic variability of peri-urban agriculture environmental impacts in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona: A regionalized life cycle assessment / Peri urban agriculture (peri-UA) can supply food locally and potentially more sustainably than far-away conventional agricultural systems. It can also introduce significant environmental impacts depending on the local biophysical conditions and resources required to implement it.

Workshop: Agricultural Perspectives in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona

31 October 2022

We kindly invite you to participate in the workshop entitled ‘Agricultural Perspectives in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona’, organized by URBAG and sponsored by the Maria de Maeztu programme of excellence at ICTA-UAB.  The workshop will take place at ICTA-UAB on Friday, 25th of NOVEMBER 2022, from 9:30 to 14h. 

Angelica Mendoza finishes her MSCA scholarship PROTEAN

28 October 2022

Angelica Mendoza finishes her MSCA scholarship PROspecTive Environmental AssessmeNt of Urban Agriculture-Emerging Systems (PROTEAN), which she carried out within the project URBAG. The aim was to develop prospective life cycle databases to calculate future life cycle impacts of food production to enable the comparison of food production via conventional agriculture and via urban agriculture, all in a future context.

Publication in Science of The Total Environment

31 January 2022

Title: Mapping direct N2O emissions from peri-urban agriculture: The case of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona / Geographically explicit datasets reflecting local management of crops are needed to help improve direct nitrous oxide (N2O) emission inventories. Yet, the lack of geographically explicit datasets of relevant factors influencing the emissions make it difficult to estimate them in such way.

Publication in Urban Sustainability

6 September 2021

Title: A take-home message from COVID-19 on urban air pollution reduction through mobility limitations and teleworking / The rigorous traffic limitations during COVID-19 have forced many people to work from home, reaching an outstanding degree of teleworking and reduction in air pollution

Publication in Science of The Total Environment

10 August 2021

Title: Recovered phosphorus for a more resilient urban agriculture: Assessment of the fertilizer potential of struvite in hydroponics / Urban agriculture (UA) is a means for cities to become more resilient in terms of food sovereignty while shortening the distance between production and consumption. However, intensive soilless UA still depends on the use of fertilizers, which relies on depleting non-renewable resources.

Publication in Science of The Total Environment

1 July 2021

Title: Optimizing irrigation in urban agriculture for tomato crops in rooftop greenhouses / The rise of population in urban areas makes it ever more important to promote urban agriculture (UA) that is efficient in terms of water and nutrients. How to meet the irrigation demand of UA is of particular concern in urban areas where water sources are often limited.

Publication in Science of the Total Environment

2 February 2021

Urban agriculture, while being a promising solution to increase food sovereignty in cities, can lead to an unprecedented discharge of nutrient and fertilizer-related emissions into the urban environment. Especially relevant are nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), due to their contribution to marine and freshwater eutrophication.