Urban Gardening in a Changing Climate: A Review of Effects, Responses and Adaptation Capacities for Cities

Francisco Tomatis, Monika Egerer, Adriana Correa-Guimaraes and Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia ()
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Francisco Tomatis: TADRUS Research Group, Department of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering, University of Valladolid, 34004 Palencia, Spain
Monika Egerer: Department of Life Science Systems, TUM School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, 85354 Freising, Germany
Adriana Correa-Guimaraes: TADRUS Research Group, Department of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering, University of Valladolid, 34004 Palencia, Spain
Luis Manuel Navas-Gracia: TADRUS Research Group, Department of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering, University of Valladolid, 34004 Palencia, Spain

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: Climate change is impacting the ecological, social and technological aspects of urban gardens. Gardens experience threats (e.g., water scarcity) but are also responding through adaptation strategies (e.g., selecting drought-resilient plants). A synthetic overview of how urban gardens are affected by climate change and responding to climate change is unclear. Here, we systematically reviewed articles and book chapters published in the last two decades (2000–2022) to illustrate the relationship between climate change and urban gardening. From 72 documents analyzed with Nvivo Software, we found that there has been an increase in academic publications. Universities from the US (14) and Germany (9) universities are the dominant producers. Evidence shows that climate change can have negative impacts on cities, people and urban food. Suggestions on how to build the adaptation capacity of urban gardens include collecting rainwater, changing plant selection, changing planting times, applying vegetative cover on the soil and other practices. For cities, community and allotment gardens are helpful for adaptation, mitigation and resilience. This includes the capacity to regulate the microclimate, to reduce urban heat island effects and to buffer urban floods, the power to capture carbon, the ability to create social networks and other socio-environmental benefits for urban climate planning.

Keywords: urban gardens; community gardens; allotment gardens; adaptive gardening; climate change; urban mitigation; urban adaptation; urban resilience; urban sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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