Urban and Peri-urban Agroforestry as Multifunctional Land Use

Abstract

In this era of global changes, rapid urbanization rates, climate change impacts and growing socio-environmental concerns are negatively impacting on various aspects of urban life, such as human health and well-being, urban economy stability, biodiversity levels, land productivity and natural resources availability. In this context, cities-having become the main centres of consumption and production worldwide-need to move towards more sustainable and resilient urban development models, considering novel approaches aimed at integrating grey and green infrastructure, economic growth and environmental concerns, knowledge diffusion and poverty and hunger eradication. In this regard, the implementation of urban and peri-urban agroforestry (UPAF) systems-associated with the integration of urban food systems into urban planning-can greatly support the provision of ecosystem services to urban dwellers, thus contributing to the improvement of their livelihood through increased food and nutrition security, energy and fresh water availability, regulation of local climate, carbon sequestration, maintenance of genetic diversity, recreation opportunities and health improvement. In this sense, UPAF is emerging as a new urban practice addressed to promote sustainable land use as well as the integration between urban and rural development. However, its implementation in urban contexts presents several key challenges, such as land tenure conflicts, lack of integration with urban policies and plans and technical knowledge, as well as necessity of innovative governance models.

Village Level Provisioning Ecosystem Services and Their Values to Local Communities in the Peri-Urban Areas of Manila, The Philippines

“…Our study shows that the relationship of provisioning services with livelihoods can be a valid way to capture the importance of diverse landscapes to the livelihoods of the locals. Our findings are in line with works of [66][67][68][69] and our results show high importance of local resource harvesters with the direct provisioning services acquired from different types of landscapes (e.g., agricultural areas, home-gardens, degraded forests, riparian areas, freshwater streams, and the Laguna Lake). Based on the findings we argue that this assessment of ecosystems' linkage to the Several scholars have studied the importance of diverse landscapes for keeping landscape ecological integrity from a species based inquiry [64] or an inquiry-based on land use and land cover changes [64,65].…”

When the “Strong Arms” Leave the Farms—Migration, Gender Roles and Risk Reduction in Vietnam

“…Conversely, recent or conditioned tenures provided more certainty, and thus, more reasons to invest in longer-term or sustainable farming systems. Such results are unsurprising, and often referred to in global recommendations for land tenure security [64,67,68].…”

Forecasting Agroforestry Ecosystem Services Provision in Urban Regeneration Projects: Experiences and Perspectives from Milan

“…This study confirmed our results, showing the highest difference of O 3 absorption and NO 2 absorption in 30 years. The potential of combining different species of trees-as in a peri-urban agroforestry system-appeared to be the key not only for regulating air pollution but also other regulating services [58,59].…”