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Urbanization is increasingly compromising residents’ connection to natural habitats and landscapes. With established relationships between human–nature connection (HNC) and pro-environmental behaviour and human well being, there are calls for effective interventions to strengthen HNC in urban settings. However, much of this research has operationalised HNC in narrow psychological terms. Based on an embodied framework of urban human–food connection (HFC) as a specific dimension of HNC, this article explores the role of active urban gardening in promoting different types of internal and external HFC and their link with pro-environmental food behaviour (PEFB). Based on a quantitative survey in Germany addressing vegetable gardeners in Munich (N = 254), a principal component analysis extracted four components of HFC comprising external body-related HFC (i.e. immediate urban garden-body activities: food harvesting and experiential food interaction) and internal mind-related HFC (i.e. immediate urban garden-mind activities including food discovery as well as food consciousness). These were found to be statistically related to one another. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that food consciousness through concerns on food consumption and environmental impacts as well as food as part of life attitude as an internal HFC is the sole predictor of PEFB. The study suggests an embodied HFC model emphasizing the need for local body- and mind-based nature connections for fostering earth stewardship. Future research should explore the relationship between inner dimensions of nature connectedness and external behavioural change to enable transformations towards sustainability.

While urban systems are expanding at very fast rates all over the world, understanding their spatial development remains a complex and controversial issue, burdened with confusion in the literature. A common understanding of the spatial behavior of expanding urban systems needs robust conceptualization and empirical evidence. The physical growth of cities assumes different spatial patterns, usually in the form of urban sprawl resulting from multi-dimensional drivers and causing multi-dimensional economic, social and ecological impacts. The need to manage urban sprawl and its manifold adverse consequences by promoting compact urban development and urban densification/re-utilization has been widely promoted in science and policy-making. However, ensuring a high quality of life for urbanites demands integrative points-of-view for the types of compact development to promote, in particular regarding urban green spaces within densification processes. It is essential to consider the effects of compact development not only at larger scales, but also at neighborhood and household scales to pursue moderated and qualified densification, securing and (re-)developing urban green spaces and their multi-dimensional positive impacts. Urban sprawl and compact green cities require adequate and robust multi-dimensional spatially explicit indicators to support urban planners and policy makers. Through articles of this special issue, we explore in this synthesis paper the current international state of the art in developing, testing and implementing multi-dimensional ecological, economic, social and multi-scale regional, city, neighborhood indicators characterizing urban sprawl and compact green cities. The articles provide concepts and international case studies for land monitoring and planning recommendations for sustainable urban development. Such indicators give light to capture the social, economic and environmental dimensions of urban development while assessing the degree and extent of sprawl and compact green cities in a global context.

The production of food within cities through urban agriculture can be considered as a nature-based solution and is argued to be an important response to the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as to climate change and other urban challenges. However, current research on urban agriculture is still fragmented, calling for a systematic and integrative assessment of different forms of urban agriculture and the drivers and constraints for their effective realization. In this context, the Special Issue presents conceptual and empirical research articles from around the world on the impact and implementation potential of various types of urban agriculture. The studies of this Special Issue cover a broad range of impact and implementation dimensions, asssessment methods and geographical backgrounds that can support future studies to develop a systemic perspective on urban food production. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung Czech Science Foundation

Within the scholarly debate, Urban Agriculture (UA) has been widely acknowledged to provide diverse environmental and socio-cultural ecosystem services (ESs) for cities. However, the question of whether these potential benefits are also recognized as such by the involved societal groups on the ground has not yet been investigated. This paper aims at (1) assessing the perceived ESs of UA, comparing the views of different societal groups in the city of Bologna, Italy (namely: UA project leaders, stakeholders and the general public) and (2) to identify differences in the evaluation of specific UA types (indoor farming, high-tech greenhouses, peri-urban farms, community-supported agriculture, community rooftop garden and urban co-op). In total, 406 individuals evaluated 25 ESs via a standardized Likert-scale survey. The study unveiled similarities and divergences of perceptions among the different societal groups. The statistical analysis indicated that the general public and UA stakeholders agree on the high relevance of socio-cultural ESs, while provisioning ESs was considered as less significant. UA types focusing on social innovation were expected to provide higher socio-cultural ESs whereas peri-urban activities were more closely linked to habitat ESs. We assume that involvement and knowledge of UA are determining factors for valuing the provision of ESs through UA, which needs to be considered for ES valuation, particularly in a policymaking context. Horizon 2020 Framework Programme Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Urban and peri-urban agriculture is attracting new attention in the context of growing interests in sustainability and resilience. Although much research has been done in this field, little is known about pastoralism and its impact on urban and peri-urban settings. In this paper, we discuss the contribution of pastoral practices to urban sustainability, as well as the opportunity and need to maintain such forms of agriculture. Using Bucharest as a study area and conducting a mixed qualitative and quantitative investigation, we show that pastoral activities have a strong cultural component, contribute to short and long food supply chains, and play a role in the management of land resources. However, conflicts with urban residents may occur due to health concerns and impact on the visual quality of the landscape. We argue that active adaptation measures by both shepherds and local authorities are needed to assure the livelihood of pastoralism, particularly where it is under threat from urbanization. Our study contributes to the discussions on creating mutually beneficial relationships between agricultural activities and the urban environment for food provision, job creation and sustainable resource management. Specifically, we anticipate our study to be a starting point for more in-depth discussions on local perspectives concerning urban sustainability.

Urban areas represent the central point of sustainability initiatives which drive significant changes in cities’ planning, design and management. Given that urban areas are subject to continuous change, efficient and integrated planning and policy strategies are needed to address their complex challenges. This is why the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) plays an essential role in urban planning considering the optimal investment alternatives along with the environmental protection measures. Given that the SEA process considers all impacts on social, economic, institutional and environmental factors, this process must be managed as an adaptive process. Our analysis proposes an evaluation protocol to address sustainability on its economic-environmental-social-institutional dimensions in the evaluation of environmental permits. The evaluation protocol comprised 43 items grouped into three categories (“general presentation”, “sustainability related aspects within the protection measures” and “the strength of the protection measures”). Our analysis, focused on the urban areas from Romania as case study, shows that the environmental permits address sustainability slightly below average. The environmental and institutional dimensions of sustainability achieved the highest scores while those of the economic and social dimensions were quite the opposite. This proved to be helpful in recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of such regulatory documents in terms of their environmental, social, economic and institutional sustainability. Our study contributes to the international literature given that no studies have been elaborated on the evaluation of environmental permits using an evaluation protocol.

Literature on urban ecosystem services (UESS) is vast, particularly on cultural ecosystem services. However, due to a lack of knowledge on individual urban green spaces on the site level, further research on enhanced methods is needed to underpin existing assumptions about the reasons why people are visiting urban green spaces and what kinds of ecosystem services they can expect, with a focus on recreational activities. We argue for enhanced methods to assess supply of and demand on cultural UESS that should include the direct work with urban green space users. With the overall aim of developing a Spatial Decision Support System for visiting urban green spaces, we are applying a set of different quantitative methods to gather information on peoples’ needs and perceptions as well as data on what existing green spaces offer them. We present a two-step approach 1) linking green space criteria with recreational activities (demand-side) based on a linear series of three online surveys and 2) conducting a spatial mapping of urban green space criteria based on activity-driven indicators (supply-side). In the course of exemplified indicators operationalized by using open and local authorities′ geospatial data in an explorative study in Dresden and Heidelberg (Germany), we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

Urban green infrastructure is considered to be a key element in improving quality of life and creating an appropriate framework for sustainable cities. The most used quantitative indicator to assess urban green infrastructure is urban green space (UGS) per capita. This papeŕs aim is to analyze whether UGS is a valuable target to achieve cities’ sustainability goals. We used Romania as a case study, which should meet the target of 26 m2 of UGS per inhabitants in all cities. Aerial images were used to extract the surface of the UGS categories for a sample of 38 cities in Romania. We compared our data with three other databases (National Institute of Statistics, Environmental Protection Agencies and Urban Atlas) to check for differences. To understand the contribution of geographic and socio-economic factors to the dynamic of the UGS per capita in Romania’s cities, we used a multiple linear regression. To identify differences between cities in terms of their proportions of UGS, multiple correspondence analysis was performed. We found significant differences between the surface of UGS reported by the administrative offices and that resulting from the spatial analysis. The process of reporting UGS data currently has methodological and perspective shortcomings. Moreover, the density of the built-up space, the proximity to major transport infrastructure, the cities’ founding period and the geomorphology criteria are important predictors for the UGS. The target of 26 m2 of green area per inhabitant in all Romanian cities is not feasible and it should consider the cities’ characteristics, if you want to achieve sustainability goals. Urban green planning should focus more on the development of urban green infrastructure models that are adapted to each type of urban area.

Managing urban soil sealing is a difficult venture due to its spatial heterogeneity and embedding in a socio-ecological system. A systemic solution is needed to tackle its spatial, ecological and social sub-systems. This study develops a guideline for urban actors to find a systemic solution to soil sealing management based on two case studies in Germany: Munich and Leipzig. Legal-planning, informal-planning, economic-fiscal, co-operative and informational responses were evaluated by indicators to proof which strategy considers the spatial complexity of urban soil sealing (systemic spatial efficiency) and, while considering spatial complexity, to assess what the key management areas for action are to reduce the ecological impacts by urban soil sealing (ecological impact efficiency) and to support an efficient implementation by urban actors (social implementation efficiency). Results suggest framing the systemic solution to soil sealing management through a cross-scale, legal-planning development strategy embedded in higher European policies. Within the socio-ecological system, the key management area for action should focus on the protection of green infrastructure being of high value for actors from the European to local scales. Further efforts are necessary to establish a systemic monitoring concept to optimize socio-ecological benefits and avoid trade-offs such as between urban infill development and urban green protection. This place-based study can be regarded as a stepping stone on how to develop systemic strategies by considering different spatial sub-targets and socio-ecological systems.

Cities are confronted with different societal challenges calling for urban sustainability transformation (UST). Nature-based solutions (NbS) can provide actions for such challenges and strive for maximizing environmental, social and economic benefits. Edible cities, which encompass different forms of urban food production (UFP) in the city, can be seen as multifunctional NbS. However, the concept of edible cities has just recently arrived in research and its understanding as potential NbS supporting UST is still fragmented. Therefore, the study created an analytical framework, which aims at identifying and prioritizing 1) challenges that edible cities can contribute in the context of UST and 2) strategies for implementing and mainstreaming the edible city in the context of urban sustainability acceleration. The study is of explorative character and encompasses interviews with key actors from three German case studies: Andernach – a German frontrunner in implementing the edible city, Haar – follower I, which implemented the concept after learning from Andernach and Munich – follower II, where the concept of edible cities was not yet implemented but a range of bottom-up activities exist to promote the topic. Results show that edible cities can be seen as NbS that can support UST in terms of social-spatial and socio-ecological transformation, in particular promoting social cohesion and human-nature and food connection. In terms of implementing and mainstreaming, the results suggest that the edible city can be taken up by different city departments due to its multifunctionality. Furthermore, a mix of motivated bottom-up initiatives and top-down authorities paired with courage and room for experimentation on the edible city is crucial for its embedding. Apart from that, network creation with different UFP initiatives as well as with other cities is an important factor for mainstreaming edible cities. Future research shall test the transferability of the analytical framework to other NbS analyzing their potential to contribute to UST.

Environmental action plans are important instruments intended to provide sustainable solutions for the most pressing environmental issues. As they should be updated regularly, efforts to evaluate their quality are essential for enabling incremental improvements in upcoming versions. The aim of our study was to systematically evaluate the quality of Romania's Local Environmental Action Plans (LEAPs) by following a theoretical framework that includes principles from both rational and communicative approaches to assessing plan quality. We selected 32 LEAPs and applied an evaluation protocol that enabled a comprehensive assessment of the plans. Our results showed an overall moderate quality of the LEAPs. Although most plans identify many environmental problems in need of solutions, in reality additional urgent environmental problems often exist. Furthermore, LEAPs perform only moderately in identifying tools for implementation provisions and ensuring the participation of the public in the planning process, and they are even weaker in establishing goals and achieving coordination across different governmental levels. Overall the assessment reveals that plans are rarely able to craft an appealing policy message. Our findings could be used as guidance for LEAP coordinating agencies to improve the plans in the upcoming updating processes, as they identify plan weaknesses and suggest ways to achieve high quality environmental plans. Furthermore, our novel plan assessment method based on rational comprehensive and communicative approaches to plan quality evaluation can be adapted easily to other studies.

International audience; In contrast to the ongoing worldwide uncontrolled expansion of urban development resulting in sprawled cities, compact cities have been argued by planners and researchers to be the more sustainable urban form. However, in compact cities, it has been shown that a low proportion of green spaces jeopardizes the sufficient supply of urban ecosystem services. This suggests that there remains a deficiency in clear visions for operationalizing compact and green cities. To remediate this, this paper introduces a systemic conceptual framework for compact and green cities by combining the concepts of smart growth and green infrastructure. The indicator-based, smartcompact-green city framework includes two aspects: 1) smart compact cities (considering the need to limit urban sprawl through smart growth) and 2) smart green cities (reflecting the preservation and (re-)development of urban green infrastructure). The paper suggests that there is the need to balance these two aspects to develop a systemic approach towards smart-compact-green cities. A hierarchical target system grounded on four characters for smart compact and smart green cities is developed. Smart-compact-green cities can be characterized through a 1) smart environment of compact and green cities, 2) smart multifunctionality of compact and green cities (economic, social, environmental), 3) smart government for compact and green cities and 4) smart governance for compact and green cities. The characters comprise twelve factors defined by 39 indicators for smart compact cities and 44 indicators for smart green cities, respectively. The systemic framework can support researchers and practitioners to develop visions of how existing or future cities can approach smart-compact-green cities in mainstreaming the ecology of and for cities by better understanding the complexity of urban systems and providing a basis for a systematic spatial monitoring.

In the light of ongoing global urbanization and the high pace of resource consumption, there is an urgent need to foster compact cities. Currently, however, we lack integrative guidelines on how to manage trade-offs between urban densification and the provision of green space. Against this background, this study applies the concepts of green infrastructure and ecosystem services to develop a guideline for landscape planning to foster compact and green cities. The guideline was tested on the example of the landscape plan of Dresden (Germany), which foresees a compact city in a green network. Results show that the concepts of ecosystems services and green infrastructure can support urban practitioners in structuring the complex interrelations between landscape planning and compact and green cities. The developed guideline provides an integrative framework for modular landscape planning that: (1) reflects the spatial heterogeneity and properties of urban ecosystems and landscapes; and (2) considers cities as integrated socio-ecological systems. The case study indicates that a more comprehensive perspective of cities and their ecosystem is required, one that connects green with grey infrastructure. Further research should focus on how the green infrastructure concept can be refined to incorporate strategic planning for compact cities.

Urban green spaces (UGS) are increasingly acknowledged for their importance for the well-being of urban populations. However, studies are lacking the consideration of the demand and use of UGS by different population groups and connecting UGS with social infrastructure. In an era of worldwide urbanization and ageing, this European study sheds light on the role of UGS for care facilities for elderly. 126 care facilities from 17 cities in Austria, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania and Slovenia took part in an online survey. Administrations of care facilities gave insights on the (1) importance of gardens related to care facilities for the quality of life for the seniors, (2) importance of UGS outside of care facilities for the quality of life for the seniors and (3) the consideration of natural and age-friendly designs and management of ecosystem disservices of UGS. The results emphasize not only the importance of UGS for the quality of life of seniors residing in care facilities, but also for the staff and visitors. UGS contribute to physical activities, recreation, and social interactions. The study found that in particular facilities with an own garden are highly aware of the benefits UGS provide. The study holds important lessons for urban green space planning, management and design not only to focus on the quantitative supply of UGS, but also to consider age-sensitive amenities in and access to UGS of high quality for seniors. social infrastructure, urban green space design, urban green space access, healthy ageing, urban green space management, quality of life

Nature-based solutions promoting green and blue urban areas have significant potential to decrease the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of cities in light of climatic change. They can thereby help to mitigate climate change-induced impacts and serve as proactive adaptation options for municipalities. We explore the various contexts in which nature-based solutions are relevant for climate mitigation and adaptation in urban areas, identify indicators for assessing the effectiveness of nature-based solutions and related knowledge gaps. In addition, we explore existing barriers and potential opportunities for increasing the scale and effectiveness of nature-based solution implementation. The results were derived from an inter- and transdisciplinary workshop with experts from research, municipalities, policy, and society. As an outcome of the workshop discussions and building on existing evidence, we highlight three main needs for future science and policy agendas when dealing with nature-based solutions: (i) produce stronger evidence on nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation and raise awareness by increasing implementation; (ii) adapt for governance challenges in implementing nature-based solutions by using reflexive approaches, which implies bringing together new networks of society, nature-based solution ambassadors, and practitioners; (iii) consider socio-environmental justice and social cohesion when implementing nature-based solutions by using integrated governance approaches that take into account an integrative and transdisciplinary participation of diverse actors. Taking these needs into account, nature-based solutions can serve as climate mitigation and adaptation tools that produce additional cobenefits for societal well-being, thereby serving as strong investment options for sustainable urban planning.