Opportunities for preparing urban contaminated land for bio-based production
Research Project, 2018
– 2021
Although the larger part of bio-based production will take place outside of cities, there are several strong arguments for including urban areas in the circular economy, not least that the advantages of bio-based production will become clear to larger parts of the population. However, pressure on urban land resources is high due to urbanisation and calls for more compact cities. If we are to foster a bio-based circular economy based on increased production of food, biomass, biofuel and other bio-based products in urban areas, retrofitting obsolete and contaminated urban brownfields becomes key. Gentle remediation methods (e.g. phytoremediation, soil amendments) are low-cost, long-term methods without negative secondary impacts with potential to manage risks and improve soil ecology. The aim of the project is to investigate the possibilities and preconditions for preparing urban brownfields for temporary and long-term urban bio-based production. The specific objectives are to: 1) investigate the opportunities in terms of land use functions as well as legal and administrative requirements linked to temporary and long-term land use of former brownfields, 2) develop a method for selecting remediation option, focusing on low-cost and low-impact risk reducing methods (human and ecosystem health) and potential for urban mining, and 3) investigate involved multi-stakeholder planning and governance processes and disentangle the driving forces that make such processes possible in practice.
Participants
Jenny Norrman (contact)
Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics
Marco Adelfio
Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Urban Design and Planning
Shaswati Chowdhury
Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics
Jaan-Henrik Kain
Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Urban Design and Planning
Yevheniya Volchko
Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics
Funding
Formas
Project ID: FR-2017/0007
Funding Chalmers participation during 2017–2019
Related Areas of Advance and Infrastructure
Sustainable development
Driving Forces