Classifying and valuing ecosystem services for urban planning

https://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2015/nrs_2015_elmqvist_001.pdf

Benefits of restoring ecosystem services in urban areas

Within-city green infrastructure can offer opportunities and new contexts for people to become stewards of ecosystem services. We analyze cities as social-ecological systems, synthesize the literat ...

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Reconnecting Cities to the Biosphere : Stewardship of Green Infrastructure and Urban Ecosystem Services

Many ecosystem services are in decline. Local ecological knowledge and associated practice are essential to sustain and enhance ecosystem services on the ground. Here, we focus on social or collect ...

Social-ecological memory in urban gardens-Retaining the capacity for management of ecosystem services

The year 2007 marked a critical event in the world history. For the first time, more than half of the world population now lives in cities. In many developing countries, the urbanization process goes along with increasing urban poverty and polluted environment, growing food insecurity and malnutrition, especially for children, pregnant and lactating women; and increasing unemployment. Urban agriculture represents an opportunity for improving food supply, health conditions, local economy, social integration, and environmental sustainability altogether. Urban agriculture is present throughout the world in a diversity of farming systems. Urban dwellers ranging 25–30 % are involved worldwide in the agro-food sector. Urban agriculture will gain in recognition for its benefits and services because urban population and rural–urban migration are increasing. The actual scarcity of knowledge on urban agriculture has somehow hindered the relevance of this activity. Here, we review the social, cultural, technical, economic, environmental, and political factors affecting urban agriculture with examples taken in East Asia, South America, or East Africa. We discuss the definition, benefits, and limitations of urban agriculture. Food security benefit of urban agriculture is evidenced by 100–200 million urban farmers worldwide providing the city markets with fresh horticultural goods. Urban agriculture favors social improvement since the poors spend up to 85 % of their income in food purchase and most urban farmers belong to poorest populations. Sociologically urban farming favors both social inclusion and reduction of gender inequalities, as 65 % of urban farmers are women. Urban agriculture has ecological benefits by reducing the city waste, improving urban biodiversity and air quality, and overall reducing the environmental impact related to both food transport and storage. The production of horticultural goods shows the main benefits of urban agriculture. Fruit and vegetable crops give high yields, up to 50 kg m−2 year−1, a more efficient use of agricultural inputs, high added value, and rapidly perishable products that can easily substitute the rural production in the local market. Urban horticulture is the most competitive branch of urban farming due to the high cost of urban land and with the need of high water- and fertilizer-use efficiency. Traditional urban horticulture systems are classified in four types: allotment and family gardens, simplified extensive systems, shifting cultivation, and intensive systems. We describe also innovative systems including organoponics and simplified soilless cultures.

/pdf/urban-agriculture-in-the-developing-world-a-review-njqlkugdzn.pdf

Urban agriculture in the developing world: a review

Urban agriculture in Cuba has rapidly become a significant source of fresh produce for the urban and suburban populations. A large number of urban gardens in Havana and other major cities have emerged as a grassroots movement in response to the crisis brought about by the loss of trade, with the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989. These gardens are helping to stabilize the supply of fresh produce to Cuba's urban centers. During 1996, Havana's urban farms provided the city's urban population with 8,500 tons of agricultural produce, 4 million dozens of flowers, 7.5 million eggs, and 3,650 tons of meat. This system of urban agriculture, composed of about 8,000 gardens nationwide has been developed and managed along agroecological principles, which eliminate the use of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers, emphasizing diversification, recycling, and the use of local resources. This article explores the systems utilized by Cuba's urban farmers, and the impact that this movement has had on Cuban food security.

The greening of the “barrios”: Urban agriculture for food security in Cuba

La mayoria de las estadisticas disponibles que predicen impactos climaticos sobre la agricultura campesina son aproximaciones muy burdas que no toman en cuenta la heterogeneidad de la agricultura campesina-indigena, ni la diversidad de estrategias que los campesinos han utilizado y aun utilizan para enfrentar las sequias, inundaciones, huracanes, etc. Alrededor del mundo muchos campesinos y agricultores tradicionales han respondido a las condiciones climaticas cambiantes demostrando innovacion y resiliencia frente al cambio climatico. Un gran numero de agricultores tradicionales poseen lecciones importantes de resiliencia para los agricultores modernos y diversos expertos han sugerido que el rescate de los sistemas tradicionales de manejo, en combinacion con el uso de estrategias agroecologicas, puede representar la unica ruta viable y solida para incrementar la productividad, la sostenibilidad y la resiliencia de la produccion agricola. En este trabajo se define un marco conceptual y metodologico para poder descifrar los principios y mecanismos claves que explican la resiliencia de los sistemas diversificados, de manera de que estos puedan ser transmitidos a otros agricultores en cada region y asi mejoren la capacidad de resistencia y de recuperacion de sus fincas. Por esto la urgencia de la necesidad de desarrollar una metodologia que permita evaluar la capacidad de los agroecosistemas a resistir y recuperarse de los eventos climaticos severos, con especial enfasis en entender los procesos que explican la resiliencia socio-ecologica observada.

/pdf/agroecologia-y-resiliencia-al-cambio-climatico-principios-y-40zlcrb9nl.pdf

Agroecología y resiliencia al cambio climático: Principios y consideraciones metodológicas

SUMMARY After a brief history of pesticide use and impacts in Latin America, the paper analyzes how agricultural development programmes, from the Green Revolution to the promotion of non-traditional export crops, have perpetuated the pesticide treadmill in the region. A fundamental issue in the paper is to link the pesticide problem to the broader policy, institutional socio-economic and technical changes that must occur if agriculture is to be ecologically sound, economically viable and socially just. By using several examples of biological control and integrated pest management programmes as case studies, ways of promoting the transition of chemical intensive commercial agriculture to a more sustainable and low-external input agriculture are explored. In the policy realm, a series of requirements and incentives to initiate change towards ecological pest management are suggested, including: changing the political-economic structures, countering pressures from the agrochemical industry, disseminating IPM ...

Conventional agricultural development models and the persistence of the pesticide treadmill in Latin America

RESUMEN. Se propone una metodologia para estimar la calidad del suelo y la salud de un cultivo, utilizando indicadores sencillos de emplear. Con base en la estimacion de estos indicadores, el productor y el investigador pueden determinar el estado agroecologico de la plantacion.Con los valores obtenidos para cada indicador se construyen diagramas tipo "ameba", que permiten visualizar el estado general de la calidad del suelo y la salud del cultivo, considerando que mientras mas se aproxime la "ameba" al diametro del circulo (valor 10, optimo) el sistema es mas sostenible. La metodologia,aunque fue disenada para cafe,es aplicable a otros agroecosistemas. Ademas permite estimar la sostenibilidad en forma comparativa o relativa, monitoreando la evolucion de un mismo agroecosistema a traves del tiempo, o comparando dos o mas agroecosistemas con diferente manejo o estados de transicion.

http://orton.catie.ac.cr/repdoc/A2039e/A2039e.pdf

Un método agroecológico rápido para evaluación de la sostenibilidad de cafetales

Most models predict that small farmers will disproportionatelly share the negative effects of climate change, partuclarly those living in rainfed areas. Increases in temperature, drougths, hurricanes, etc could reduce productivity up to 50% in certain regions. Many researchers assert that while climate change reduces yields, the effects on the livelihoods of subsistence farmers could be severe. Existing models however provide a mere approximation of the expected effects and in most cases hide the enormous variability in the adaptive responses exhicited by hundreds of rural communities throughout the Third World. Many traditional communities seem to cope and even adapt to extreme weather fluctuactions. In fact many farmers even prepare to changing climate conditions minimizing yield reductions through the use of tolerant local varieties, polycultures, agroforestry systems, water harvesting, organic soil fertilization, and a variety of otehr techniques. Given this, it is imperative to re-evaluate indigenous knowledge and technologies as a key source of information of adaptive strategies centered on the experimental and innovative capacities of small farmers when confronting climate change. Understanding the agroecological adaptive and resilient mechanisms of small farmers is vital to design new agroecosystems in an era of climate change.

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Clara I. Nicholls

Papers

The greening of the “barrios”: Urban agriculture for food security in Cuba

Agroecología y resiliencia al cambio climático: Principios y consideraciones metodológicas

Conventional agricultural development models and the persistence of the pesticide treadmill in Latin America

Un método agroecológico rápido para evaluación de la sostenibilidad de cafetales

Los impactos del cambio climático sobre las comunidades campesinas y de agricultores tradicionales y sus respuestas adaptativas