Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SiEUGreen (Sino-European innovative green and smart cities)

Teaser

The world is facing grand challenges in terms of climate change, pollution, water supply and access to sufficient nutritious food (food security). Also, it is of utmost importance to provide good liveli-hoods for people. Knowing that more than 50% of the world population...

Summary

The world is facing grand challenges in terms of climate change, pollution, water supply and access to sufficient nutritious food (food security). Also, it is of utmost importance to provide good liveli-hoods for people. Knowing that more than 50% of the world population currently lives in cities, and as that percentage of urban dwellers increase, the actions of cities will play an important role in solving global challenges - now – and in the future. The project “Sino-European innovative green and smart cities (SiEUGreen pronunciation: see-you-green)” is addressing the above issues through urban agriculture and technologies based on the circular economy. SiEUGreen aspires to enhance the EU-China cooperation in promoting urban agriculture for increased access to sufficient and nu-tritious food using urban waste resources to grow the food, thus minimizing pollution and creating smart and resilient cities. Building on the model of zero-waste and circular economy, SiEUGreen will demonstrate how technological and societal innovation in urban agriculture as well as water and waste handling can have a positive impact on society and economy both in urban and near-urban areas.

SiEUGreen demonstrates how we can convert waste from households (human excreta, wastewater and organic household waste) to biogas, compost and solid and liquid fertilizer for urban agriculture and urban greening. But since cities, with all their people, produce more waste resources than urban agriculture can utilize, the potential for export to ex-urban agriculture will be considered. SiEUGreen aims to demonstrate the above issues through five showcases: Fredrikstad, Norway; Changsha, China; Hatay, Turkey; Beijing, China and Århus, Denmark. The showcases represent different settings and environments and they engage and will involve stakeholders from the house-hold/individual level to the national and international level. In SiEUGreen, the technologies and insti-tutions vary across the cases and cultural contexts. We will document how people locally adapt their understanding and use of new technology. This includes analyzing how people’s adaptive prac-tices are shaped and again shapes technology and institutions, across time and space. This ap-proach makes it possible to identify opportunities and barriers for change of technology, institutions and practice.

Work performed

The five showcases, three in Europe and two in China, are the core of the SiEUGreen project. The major activities have focused on the preparation for the deployment of these showcases. The map-ping of the showcases and strategic planning for the data collection was carried out based on the central concepts of SiEUGreen: land use, food security (access to sufficient nutritious food), effi-cient and sustainable use of resources and societal inclusion. The baseline scenario of the show-cases concerning the key project indicators (KPI´s) was mapped out and the processes of the tracking and measuring of the KPI`s laid out. To secure an effective and timely deployment of the showcases a requirement plan and a framework and detailed time plan was developed through ex-tensive interaction with the showcase leaders. To promote communication with the stakeholders, as well as the general public, an app; COMMURBAN, where information about urban agriculture is shared, has been developed.

The green (agricultural aspects) and blue (water, waste, stormwater) technologies planned for the showcases have been assessed and/or tested in the laboratory and detailed plans made for imple-mentation. The project evaluated four major crop-cultivating techniques; paper-based, hydroponics, aquaponics and soil (compost or peat) based systems. The tests included lettuce cucumber and tomatoes; aquaponics of lettuce under different light conditions, comparison of composts as alter-natives to peat for indoor growth of vegatables, growing tomatoes in various potential urban settings and herbs in kitchen growth systems. The results show that using waste-based soil (compost) and nutrients, high plant yields and good plant quality is obtained. All of the tested crop-cultivating tech-niques are at a high technological readiness level for showcase implementation. The project has evaluated different ways of composting organic household waste, including vermicomposting. Pro-duction of insects and worms for fish food in aquaponic cultures has also been evaluated as a basis for potential use in the showcases.

Awareness of the SiEUGreen by the general public as well as the scientific communities has been raised through public meetings, press coverage, generation of a website (www.sieugreen.eu), the use of social media and participation in national and international conferences as well as scientific publications. The Chinese partners received their funding almost a year late. Despite that, extensive cooperation and collaboration have been maintained with Chinese.

Final results

SiEUGreen envisions the future city as a hub in a circular economy, where pollution is nearly elimi-nated, greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced, and stormwater is handled through green technologies that also reduce noise and improves air quality. On top of this, significant amounts of food are produced. This “greening” of the city also has positive side effects on the health and happiness of the city dwellers. The concentration of people will produce a surplus of waste resources converted into bioenergy, fertilizer and soil amendment for urban and ex-urban agriculture. The overall concept of SiEUGreen, exposed through showcases, will elucidate one possible alley of social and technical innovations through which the above vision can be achieved.

Many of the planting techniques and waste treatment technologies of SiEUGreen are developed or used one by one in other contexts, but the combination to achieve a circular economy and recy-cling is new. SiEUGreen utilizes the stronghold of combining European and Chinese know-how. Examples of well-known Chinese cultivation techniques have been tested for implementation in northern Europe and the waste handling concepts of SiEUGreen implemented in China. Hopefully, this can contribute to speeding up the development of sustainable societies in both Europe and Chi-na. However, the success will depend on successful showcase deployment, good communication between the continents and effective dissemination of results and solutions to governments, poli-cymakers, developers and the general public.

State of the art is that nearly all food is imported to our cities and only minor amounts of the organic waste resources returned to agriculture. SiEUGreen demonstrates technology where organic waste resources are converted to resources for urban and exurban agriculture. Along with the showcase development new methods for the production of safe solid fertilizer, e.g. struvite and liquid fertilizer from organic waste resources are developed and refined and food produced. The SiEUGreen concept allows decentralized urban water and waste handling. This makes the concept commer-cially interesting for cities where current infrastructure does not allow additional development as well as in earthquake-prone areas where centralized water and sanitary systems are vulnerable. How-ever, the main market potential will develop along with an increasing emphasis on sustainability and circular economy from authorities and the public in general.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.sieugreen.eu/.