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Glossary

  • Aquaponics: is technology that integrates aquaculture and hydroponics. It combines fish and plant culture technologies in a closed system in which fish excrement is used as nutrient for growing plants. 
  • Blackwater: domestic waste water from toilets (water, urine, faeces and toilet paper) (Paulo et al., 2013) 
  • Ecosystem services: consist of direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being. Ecosystem services are commonly classified into four types: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting.  
  • Greywater: domestic waste water from sinks, shower, bath, kitchen and laundry activities (Paulo et al., 2013) 
  • Hydroponics: is a soil less method to grow crops. Water is the growing environment, requiring addition of nutrients to provide the proper conditions for the crop’s cultivation.  
  • Regenerative design: it is a holistic approach that supports social and ecological systems to co-evolve and succeed (Brown et al., 2018). Applied to cities, this concept integrates ecology knowledge with urban design (Blanco et al., 2021)  
  • Waste heat: is the energy that is not used and is lost into the environment. Different methods and technologies can be used to recover waste heat (e.g., regenerative and recuperative burners, economisers, waste heat boilers, air preheaters, heat pipe systems) (Jouhara et al., 2018) 
  • Transdisciplinary: integrates knowledge across academic disciplines and with non-academic stakeholders to address societal challenges (Seidl et al., 2013) 

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to all the interviewees for sharing their opinions and perspectives on urban agriculture. To Maija Kāle from the Nordic Council of Ministers in Latvia who has led the implementation of the FUTURE UA project with ambition, dedication and enthusiasm. A great thanks to Kyösti Lempa from NordForsk for following up all the steps of implementation of this project and contributing to insightful discussions about the future of urban agriculture. Thanks to Alix Vaulthier, who carried out the interviews with the cases Dodo, Longyearbyen, and NMBU and to Lisa Rohrer for checking the language and quality of this report. 
Photo: Getty Images/unsplash.com