Collaborative Research: IRES: Life Cycle Management and Ecosystem Services Applied to Urban Agriculture

比较城市和传统农业的环境效益和环境影响越来越多的人搬到城市，远离传统种植农作物的地方。如果我们能在城市里耕种，食物的运输距离和相关的环境影响将减少;食物的新鲜度和城市的自力更生和恢复力将增加。随着越来越多的后院和社区花园，我们的社会已经逐渐过渡到在城市内生产食物。但是，城市农业能比传统农业更高效、更环保吗？农业对环境的影响是否总是大于环境效益？我们如何使用现有的环境影响和环境效益建模方法进行评估？净和绝对的可持续性？农业？在这个项目中，我们将回答这些类型的问题在托莱多大学（UT），犹他州大学（UU）和巴塞罗那自治大学（UAB）的合作努力。如果我们的研究结果表明城市农业具有净环境效益，当前的地方食品运动将进一步加强并以科学认识为指导。该项目旨在对研究和全球参与产生影响。来自所有三个机构的学生将在UT和UU学生前往UAB两个月之前进行两个学期的虚拟培训和合作。学生将使用视频会议，维基，博客和在线讨论论坛，以提高他们的创业和研究技能和文化能力。学生和主要研究人员将在托莱多、湖城和巴塞罗那三个城市的屋顶温室和社区花园中模拟番茄生产。生命周期评估将用于估计环境影响。生态系统服务模式将用于估算环境效益。影响和效益将被添加到估计中？绝对的环境可持续性？农业系统。多个尺度将进行分析，因为我们比较结果在个人与城市范围内的实施，以得出结论，为设施管理人员，公用事业经理，设计工程师和城市规划师。项目方法和结果将有助于我们的社会设计更可持续的粮食-能源-水（FEW）系统。

Comparing environmental benefits to environmental impacts in urban and conventional agricultureAn increasing percentage of people are moving into cities, getting farther away from places where crops are traditionally cultivated. If we could farm in the cities, food transportation distances and associated environmental impact would be reduced; the freshness of the food and self-reliance and resilience of cities would increase. With an increasing number of backyard and community gardens, our society is already gradually transitioning to producing food within the city. But can urban agriculture be more efficient and environmentally friendly than conventional farming? Are environmental impacts always greater than environmental benefits in agriculture? How can we use existing environmental impact and environmental benefit modeling approaches to estimate ?net and absolute sustainability? of agriculture? In this project, we will answer these types of questions in a collaborative effort from University of Toledo (UT), University of Utah (UU), and Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Current local food movement will further strengthen and be guided by scientific understanding if our results show that urban agriculture has net environmental benefits.This project aims to have impact in both research and global engagement. Students from all three institutions will train and collaborate virtually for two semesters prior to UT and UU students traveling to UAB for two months. Students will use videoconferencing, wiki, blogs, and online discussion forums to improve their entrepreneurship and research skills and cultural competencies. Students and principal investigators will model tomato production in rooftop greenhouses and community gardens in three cities: Toledo, Salt Lake City, and Barcelona. Life cycle assessment will be used to estimate environmental impacts. Ecosystem services models will be used to estimate environmental benefits. The impacts and benefits will be added to estimate ?absolute environmental sustainability? for agricultural systems. Multiple scales will be analyzed as we compare results at individual versus city wide implementation to derive conclusions for facility managers, utility managers, design engineers, and urban planners. Project methods and results will help our society in designing more sustainable food-energy-water (FEW) systems.