Research Area:
Landscape Change and Management

Edible Cities

Assessing urban greening strategies as systemic solutions for social challenges of urbanization. Development of a conceptual evaluation framework and experimenting with using the example of edible cities in Germany.

Cities are faced with an increasing complexity of urban development. Systemic solutions are therefore required which unfold with little implementation effort a substantial effect for environment and humans. Especially urban greening strategies promise to deliver systemic solutions for challenges of urbanization. In the wake of current social challenges such as climate change, ongoing urbanization and criticism of the food industry, the concept of the "edible city" is gaining in importance for urban planning. Edible cities use public urban green spaces for the cost-free provision of food and for urban gardening for their citizens. However, for analyzing the contribution of urban greening strategies and edible cities to the development of systemic solutions for challenges of urbanization it lacks comprehensive evaluation frameworks.

Based on a socio-ecological system and under consideration of the concepts of nature-based solutions, green infrastructure and ecosystem services this project develops an indicator-based evaluation framework to assess the implementation and impact efficiency of urban greening strategies. The evaluation framework is specified and validated by using the example of edible cities in selected case studies in Germany.

For developing the basis of the evaluation framework a systemic review of the relevant state of the art will be conducted. For specifying and validating the evaluation framework for edible cities three case study cities from Germany (Andernach, Haar and Munich) will be involved in the project. The specification of the framework includes the analysis of planning strategies and guided interviews. For validating the evaluation framework subjective (e.g., survey) and objective assessments (e.g., GIS-analysis) will be done.

The project provides scientific fundamentals for evaluating and developing systemic solutions for societal challenges of urbanization in the context of urban greening strategies. By testing the framework using the example of edible cities, the project also makes socially relevant contributions by critically reflecting innovative urban greening strategies for cities.