Urbanization-Induced GHG Emissions: A Review on the Role of Agri-Food Systems

Abstract

Agriculture and the food system ramifications account for around 30% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet, beyond the usual urban food-related metabolic approaches to carbon emissions (globalization of diets, value chains, nutrient balances, etc.), additional structural and spatial dimensions to the conception of this problem need to be outlined. This study proposes a transdisciplinary and multidimensional framework to support the interpretation of food-related GHG emissions induced by different aspects of urbanization; this was done through a bibliographic review considering a broad sample of studies while identifying leading authors and schools. Two major categories of scholarly praxis were used: urban metabolism and urban morphology. In this process, it was found that there is a gap between the perspectives of urban planning and design outlets and the research programs derived from the fact that the urban metabolism stream of studies is simpler to isolate, fund, and implement when compared to the remarkably long-term oriented planning needed to embark on urban morphology measures. Moreover, there is currently a biased tilt toward urban studies in terms of research investments and cases such as the agropolitan territories have been disregarded despite their already proven results. This could be solved if when using the term urbanization, it is understood that de-ruralisation is an inevitable, and simultaneously occurring mechanism. It then follows that urban spatial planning should also be complemented by rural spatial planning to achieve effective integrated solutions within relevant rural-urban science-policy interfaces.