A methodological approach for assessing the impact of urban agriculture on water resources: a case study for community gardens in Rome (Italy)

ABSTRACT

The paper proposes a methodology to assess water consumption in urban agriculture. Green and blue water footprints were calculated for five selected community gardens (CGs) in Rome (Italy) based on weather, crops, and yields. Then, the water requirement for all the CGs of the city, identified by means of a geodatabase, was estimated. For a cultivated area of 4.06 ha, an overall water requirement of 22,036 m³ (13,596 m³ green and 8,440 m³ blue) resulted from the assessment. Considering also the efficiency of the irrigation system, blue water consumption would reach 20,000 m3 in the worst scenario (furrow irrigation).

KEYWORDS:

• Green water
• blue water
• crop water footprint
• crop water use
• spatial geodatabase
• vegetables
• sustainability

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the COST Action ES1106 “Assessment of European Agriculture Water Use and Trade Under Climate Change” (EURO-AGRIWAT) for having provided the opportunity to conduct this study.

A special thank goes to “Zappata Romana” for their availability to share information and knowledge about the management of the community gardens analyzed in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.