Review of urban agriculture as a strategy for building a water resilient city

Abstract

Urban agriculture (UA) can be used as a strategy to ensure the building of resilient cities. The objective of this study is to extensively review the literature on what and how UA can contribute to flooding risk management in the effort to build water resilient cities in several ways. UA plays a key role in changing linear water economy to circular thereby cutting the dependence of urban areas on rural for ecosystem service provision including flooding risk management. Urban flood-prone areas can be allocated to UA in pursuit of flood management while at the same time serving as a buffer zone to safeguard environmentally vulnerable areas from the damage of floods. UA exhibits higher infiltration capacity expressed in terms of curve number (CN) and is affected by soil type and management practice. Flooding risk and its management can be shared between government and local institutions to make the system feasible. Rainwater and flood harvesting are important in building a water-resilient city where the Sponge City Concept demonstrated the possibility of reducing 100-year storms to 25-year storms. Urban administrators and planners need to make UA the prior urban land-use type as it enables the building of a water resilient city while responding to multiple policies and objectives than other urban land-use types.