Quality of Life Benefits of Urban Rooftop Gardening for People With Intellectual Disabilities or Mental Health Disorders.

BACKGROUND: The number of urban community gardens, including those on rooftops, is increasing. However, few studies have explored the benefits of these gardens for people with intellectual disabilities or mental health disorders. We evaluated the association between urban rooftop gardening and quality of life of individuals with moderate to very marked disability. METHODS: We collected quality of life information with a preliminary version of the INTEGRAL Scale questionnaire from all gardeners (n = 54) and among a comparison group of nongardeners (n = 43). We also conducted semi-structured interviews with participants and technicians, and made field observations. RESULTS: Our results indicated that urban rooftop gardening was associated with better personal development and suggested enhanced physical and emotional well-being, sense of purpose, social inclusion, interpersonal relations (including new perspectives on the urban environment and the changes in social roles), and general quality of life. CONCLUSION: Our study extends the evidence on the potential benefits of urban rooftop gardening in general, and specifically for those with intellectual disabilities and mental health disorders.

Environmental sustainability of European production and consumption assessed against planetary boundaries.

The planetary boundaries (PBs) represent a well-known concept, which helps identify whether production and consumption systems are environmentally sustainable in absolute terms, namely compared to the Earth's ecological limits and carrying capacity. In this study, the impacts of production and consumption of the European Union in 2010 were assessed by means of life cycle assessment (LCA)-based indicators and compared with the PBs. Five different perspectives were adopted for assessing the impacts: a production perspective (EU Domestic Footprint) and four distinct consumption perspectives, resulting from alternative modelling approaches including both top-down (input-output LCA) and bottom-up (process-based LCA). Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results were assessed against LCIA-based PBs, which adapted the PBs framework to the LCIA indicators and metrics of the Environmental Footprint method (EF). Global environmental impacts transgressed several LCIA-based PBs. When assessing the overall environmental impacts of EU consumption compared to the global LCIA-based PBs, impacts of EU consumption related to climate change, particulate matter, land use and mineral resources were close or already transgressed the global boundaries. The EU, with less than 10% of the world population, was close to transgress the global ecological limits. Moreover, when downscaling the global PBs and comparing the impacts per capita for an average EU citizen and a global one, the LCIA-PBs were significantly transgressed in many impact categories. The results are affected by uncertainty mainly due to: (a) the intrinsic uncertainties of the different LCA modelling approaches and indicators; (b) the uncertainties in estimating LCIA-based PBs, due to the difficulties in identifying limits for the Earth's processes and referring them to LCIA metrics. The results may anyway be used to define benchmarks and policy targets to ensure that consumption and production in Europe remains within safe ecological boundaries, as well as to understand the magnitude of the effort needed to reduce the impacts.

Environmental analysis of the logistics of agricultural products from roof top greenhouses in Mediterranean urban areas.

BACKGROUND: As urban populations increase so does the amount of food transported to cities worldwide, and innovative agro-urban systems are being developed to integrate agricultural production into buildings; for example, by using roof top greenhouses (RTGs). This paper aims to quantify and compare, through a life cycle assessment, the environmental impact of the current linear supply system with a RTG system by using a case study for the production of tomatoes. RESULTS: The main results indicate that a change from the current linear system to the RTG system could result in a reduction, per kilogram of tomatoes (the functional unit), in the range of 44.4-75.5% for the different impact categories analysed, and savings of up to 73.5% in energy requirements. These savings are associated with re-utilisation of packaging systems (55.4-85.2%), minimisation of transport requirements (7.6-15.6%) and reduction of the loss of product during transportation and retail stages (7.3-37%). CONCLUSIONS: The RTG may become a strategic factor in the design of low-carbon cities in Mediterranean areas. Short-term implementation in the city of Barcelona could result in savings of 66.1 tonnes of CO2 eq. ha(-1) when considering the global warming potential, and of 71.03 t ha(-1) when considering that the transformation from woodland to agricultural land is avoided.

Life Cycle Assessment support to environmental ambitions of EU policies and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The European Green Deal and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ask for a more holistic approach to production and consumption along value chains. The role of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in supporting policy design and monitoring is then pivotal to achieving policy ambitions. This paper explores the potential support of LCA to EU (European Union) policies and the SDGs, considering also the Planetary Boundaries (PBs) framework. The assessment focuses on (a) the relationship between LCA, the SDGs, and the European Green Deal; (b) the potential use of LCA in support of the monitoring of SDG12 and the environmental impacts of production and consumption; and (c) the relevance of an absolute sustainability dimension, including the integration of the PBs framework in EU policy and the SDGs. Results highlight that the interlinkages between LCA, EU policy, SDGs, and the PBs can be classified as existing, missing, or existing depending on the LCA framework. In general, LCA was identified to strengthen and further enable EU policies toward achieving the SDGs while remaining within the physical limits of the planet. This is because LCA can be a pivotal method to quantify and assess environmental impacts of value chains and consumption patterns, enabling the evaluation of their implication on environment-related SDGs and assessing them against the PBs. The example of the Consumption Footprint highlights that the concept and Life Cycle Impact Assessment method of an LCA framework can determine the linkage among EU policy, SDGs, and the PBs. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:1221-1232. © 2022 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Social acceptance and perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in Southern Europe: The case of Bologna, Italy.

Urban agriculture has become a common form of urban land use in European cities linked to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits, as well as to diversified forms (from self-production allotments to high-tech companies). Social acceptance will determine the development of urban agriculture and specific knowledge on citizens' perception is required in order to set the basis for policy-making and planning. The ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture can be determinant in this process. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the social acceptance and the perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in the city of Bologna (Italy), as an example of a Southern European city. In particular, we evaluated the preferences for urban land uses, for different typologies of urban agriculture and for the resulting products, the perceived provision of ecosystem services and the willingness to engage in new initiatives. A survey that investigated these topics (including open questions, closed questions and Likert-scale evaluation) was performed on the citizens of Bologna (n = 380) between October and November 2016. Results showed that urban agriculture is widely accepted by the inhabitants of Bologna, particularly regarding vegetable production. Although intensive farming systems were the least preferred forms to be implemented in Bologna, citizens highly accepted a large variety of urban agriculture goods, with preference for those obtained from plants as compared to animal products. The willingness-to-pay for urban food products was mostly the same as for conventional ones, although the participants recognised the social values, proximity and quality of the former. Socio-cultural ecosystem services were perceived as more valuable than environmental ones. Policy-making recommendations can be extracted from the results to facilitate the development of urban agriculture plans and policies.