News

New preprint: “The food-water-climate nexus of green infrastructure: Examining ecosystem services trade-offs of peri-urban agriculture”

23 April 2024

Title: The Food-Water-Climate Nexus of Green Infrastructure: Examining Ecosystem Services Trade-Offs of Peri-Urban Agriculture / This paper explores the impacts on the food-water-climate nexus of different scenarios of peri-urban agricultural expansion in a semi-arid, Mediterranean climate, addressing local food provision, freshwater use, local temperature regulation, global climate change mitigation, and the trade-offs thereof.

New publication in the “International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation”

4 March 2024

Title: Assimilating Sentinel-2 data in a modified vegetation photosynthesis and respiration model (VPRM) to improve the simulation of croplands CO2 fluxes in Europe / This paper presents an assimilation of high-resolution Sentinel-2 indices with eddy covariance measurements at selected European cropland flux sites in a new modified version of Vegetation Photosynthesis Respiration Model (VPRM).

New publication in “Sustainable Cities and Society”

21 February 2024

Title: Assessing Nature-based solutions in the face of urban vulnerabilities: A multi-criteria decision approach / Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly employed to address urban challenges. Typically, NBS planning emphasizes environmental impacts and ecosystem services, often overlooking their role in addressing vulnerabilities.

Participation at the Green urbanism conference

20 December 2023

On December 2023, URBAG participated at the VII International conference on Green Urbanism (GU 2023) with the presentation “Integrated System Analysis of Urban Vegetation and Agriculture: An Interdisciplinary and Participatory Decision Approach for Evaluating Nature-based Solutions Against Urban Vulnerabilities”.

URBAG participation in the European WRF-Chem Workshop 2023

19 December 2023

Between May 9th and 11th, 2023, the European WRF-Chem Workshop has taken place in the Italian city of Lecce, in which the URBAG group participated. The URBAG researcher Alba Badia  shared her work related to the atmospheric and chemical transport model Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry to the workshop participants.

URBAG participation at EGU23

18 December 2023

As third year in a row, URBAG resarchers have participated in the EGU’s annual General Assembly EGU23, hosted in Vienna, Austria. Thanks to the hybrid format, over 18,831 registered attendees from 105 countries have shared each work throughout the week-long conference from 23-28 April 2023. Three URBAG presentations have been shared in the conference by Alba Badia, Ricard Segura and Sergi Ventura.

New publication in “Science of The Total Environment”

3 October 2023

Title: Literature review on the potential of urban waste for the fertilization of urban agriculture: A closer look at the metropolitan area of Barcelona / Urban agriculture (UA) activities are increasing in popularity and importance due to greater food demands and reductions in agricultural land, also advocating for greater local food supply and security as well as the social and community cohesion perspective.

Participation at the CILCA conference

7 September 2023

On July 2023, URBAG participated at the X International Conference of Life Cycle Assessment in Latin America (CILCA 2023) with the presentation "Unlocking the potential of municipal solid waste compost for urban and peri-urban agriculture: Nutrient recirculation in metropolitan areas". It was the tenth edition of this conference, which is intended for users of tools based on life cycle thinking at different levels.

Participation at the ISIE conference

5 September 2023

On July 2023, URBAG participated at the International Conference of Industrial Ecology (ISIE) with two presentations. Juan David Arosemena presented his research which aims to determine the capacity and environmental impacts of supplying macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium from composting organic municipal solid waste. Gara Villalba presented the A decision approach to evaluate the design and implementation of green infrastructures in urban environments.

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.

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.