Paper short abstract:

Biodiversity should be at the heart of sustainable urban food production. We report on a digital mapping exercise for Maidstone, Kent which combines community food sites with multi-source mapping. Generated maps are helping develop an integrated biodiversity management plan for crops and wildlife.

Paper long abstract:

It is hypothesised that the food security of Britain needs the development of diverse, urban agroecological systems that integrate crops and wildlife. It is further posited that this will require the mapping of urban centres linked to food projects and supported by digital technologies. Whilst urban food mapping is well advanced (e.g. Kremer & DeLiberty, 2011; European Commission, 2016) and urban biodiversity assessments are known (e.g. Zari, 2019) there have been only limited policy reviews that combine crop and wildlife diversity (e.g. Frison, 2016). More research is proposed, with case-studies supported by broad spectrum digital sensing and mapping.

This project develops the combined studies approach further:

1. A survey of Maidstone to identify sites suitable for biodiverse urban horticulture, utilising digital and other remote sensing options including maps, satellite imagery, council archives, local interviews and ground-truthing;

2. Community-led food production sites in Maidstone, organised by the Kent Wildlife Trust in collaboration with Maidstone Borough Council and supported by Hadlow College horticulture specialists. These sites will explore the maximum production potential of protected and open horticulture systems and associated companion wildlife;

3. Combine 1. and 2. above to generate maps that can help plan towards the provision of the basic fruit and vegetable requirements of Maidstone's 170,000 citizens and integrate this with optimal wildlife biodiversity;

4. Critique the challenges and opportunities of this approach for the generation of sustainable urban agroecosystems, which offer sustainable food supplies and enhanced wildlife biodiversity for Maidstone and other towns and cities.

Paper short abstract:

Traditional mapping practices have drastically changed in recent years. Often, the new mapping enables a new way of approaching urban issues. Urban food practices, a topic of increasing interest, are also prolific in uptaking new mapping styles. This paper explores the young history of food mapping.

Paper long abstract:

Traditional mapping practices have drastically changed in recent years from having an apolitical, authorative voice. Enabled by new technologies and varying visualisation methods, maps are no longer singular, static or reductive but instead are being transformed to make visible and to empower by engaging different perspectives, subjects and tempos. Popular, novel approaches include guerrilla, emotional and critical cartography which enrich current urban design and planning studies with complex and surprising findings. Often, the new mapping practices enable - and are enabled by - a new way of approaching contemporary urban issues.

Urban food practices, a topic of increasing interest to all, anthropology, geography and urban design due to increasing urbanisation, environmental concerns and a desire to reconnect to nature and to one's food source, are also prolific in uptaking new mapping styles. Using GIS and other forms of artist, participatory and community mapping, amongst others, food mapping provides a rich arena in which to apply mapping as a tool to communicate new ways of understanding urban space, identities, relationships, alternative economies, mobilities and connections across the city and beyond.

This paper explores the yet young history of food mapping from anthropology and urban design perspectives with the aim to establish a first systematic overview of food mapping's visual outputs and production processes. The paper seeks to explore the tensions, criticisms and new theoretical and methodological directions that such mapping introduces across disciplines in relation to key themes that include identity, space-use conflicts, gender, migration, the senses, ecology, productivity, and home/place-making through food.

Paper short abstract:

Future spatial planning guidance on how to urbanise without abandoning agricultural productivity in Luxembourg will be made through two composite "envelopes": one for tracing optimum densification trajectories, and one for optimum allocation of agricultural land.

Paper long abstract:

The challenges of urbanisation, the decline of arable land and the rise in climate uncertainty across the world raise concerns about food security for a booming global population. One key to meeting this challenge is the exploration of alternative scenarios of densification in the built environment without giving up productive agricultural land. This talk reflects on work undertaken as part of a PhD research project on the territory of Luxembourg, which is highlighted as an example because of the extreme contradiction between its economic, political and environmental performance. The study aims to explore the future of spatial development in Luxembourg through two composite "envelopes": one for tracing optimum densification trajectories, and one for optimum allocation of agricultural land. It thus explores alternative land-use scenarios, responding to (i) the country's intensive population and economic patterns and (ii) its unsustainable spatial materialisations that affect the agricultural landscape. The research accentuates a multi-scalar nature by articulating three components:

(1) The development of a hybrid landscape classification through the investigation of a landscape suitability analysis of a development and soil capacity index. (2) The identification of sustainable and ecological criteria that go beyond conventional dichotomies of existing fabrics. Based on that, Luxembourg will be re-mapped to uncover new potential areas for optimised urban development without giving up productive agricultural land. (3) Eventually, the research will explore future land-use scenarios for productive agro-urban landscapes with alternative typologies for future growth projections.

Contributions will be made by providing spatial planning guidance on how to urbanise without abandoning agricultural productivity in Luxembourg.