Sowing Seeds in the City: Ecosystem and Municipal Services [Hardcover]

Urban agriculture has the potential to change our food systems, enhance habitat in our cities, and to morph urban areas into regions that maximize rather than disrupt ecosystem services. The potential impacts of urban agriculture on a range of ecosystem services including soil and water conservation, waste recycling, climate change mitigation, habitat, and food production is only beginning to be recognized. Those impacts are the focus of this book. Growing food in cities can range from a tomato plant on a terrace to a commercial farm on an abandoned industrial site. Understanding the benefits of these activities across scales will help this movement flourish. Food can be grown in community gardens, on roofs, in abandoned industrial sites and next to sidewalks. The volume includes sections on where to grow food and how to integrate agriculture into municipal zoning and legal frameworks.Preface.- Chapter 1. Introduction: Ecosystem Services from Urban Agriculture in the City of the Future.- Part I: Soil and Water Resources.- Chapter 2: Soil Formation and Nutrient Cycling.- Chapter 3: A Guide to Types of Non Potable Water and the Potential for Reuse in Urban Systems.- Chapter 4: Graywater Reuse For Irrigation: Benefits and Potential Hazards.- Chapter 5: Planting Abundance: Alternative Water Sources for Urban Farms.- Part II: Ecosystem Services  Waste Treatment.- Chapter 6: The Role of Organic Residuals in Urban Agriculture.- Chapter 7: Municipal Food Waste Management Options: Climate and Economic Impacts.- Chapter 8: Food Waste Composting in Seattle: The Political Perspective.- Chapter 9: Cedar Grove Compost: Developing a Combined Food- Yard Waste Centralized Composting Program.- Part III: Ecosystem Services  Climate Regulation.- Chapter 10: Soils and Climate Change.- Chapter 11: Soil Carbon Sequestration and Organic Wastes.- Chapter 12: Lettuce to Reduce Greenhouse Gases: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Community Agriculture.- Part IV: Ecosystlc(