Create a thriving garden or allotment that works in harmony with nature and will flourish in the face of ever-changing environmental conditions. In The Resilient Garden and Allotment Handbook, expert organic gardener Sally Morgan shares a wide range of ecological concepts from permaculture, regenerative gardening, agroecology and more to boost your garden’s biodiversity and enrich your soil. This must-have guide will help you: Build your soil so it’s full of healthy organic matter and protect it through no-dig practices, composting, cover crops and mulching Increase resilience through productive plant combinations and polyculture Create wildlife-friendly habitats utilising walls and fences, log piles, water features and wild corners Choose the right plants to attract pollinators and plant defenders Combat disease and keep pests at bay using natural predators, companion planting and trap and barrier crops PLUS The importance of collecting genetically diverse seeds from plants that have adapted to local conditions Sustainably manage water in your garden, especially in times of drought or excessive rainfall Whether you’re a passionate gardener, allotment holder or grower, The Resilient Garden and Allotment Handbook will help you future-proof your garden by giving it everything it needs to adapt and succeed, whatever the climate challenge. (Previously published as The Healthy Vegetable Garden, now updated and revised) 'A must-read for anyone who wants to know how to grow their own zero-food miles, pesticide-free veg, while treading gently upon our planet.' Dave Goulson, author of The Garden Jungle and Silent Earth 'This book could not be better timed, and given Sally’s lifetime experience of organic gardening, it’s bound to inspire all those who want to ‘grow back better’.' Helen Browning, Chief Executive, Soil Association

Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a burgeoning interest in, and literature of, both landscape studies and food studies. Landscape describes places as relationships and processes. Landscapes create people’s identities and guide their actions and their preferences, while at the same time are shaped by the actions and forces of people. Food, as currency, medium, and sustenance, is a fundamental part of those landscape relationships. This volume brings together over fifty contributors from around the world in forty profoundly interdisciplinary chapters. Chapter authors represent an astonishing range of disciplines, from agronomy, anthropology, archaeology, conservation, countryside management, cultural studies, ecology, ethics, geography, heritage studies, landscape architecture, landscape management and planning, literature, urban design and architecture. Both food studies and landscape studies defy comprehension from the perspective of a single discipline, and thus such a range is both necessary and enriching. The Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food is intended as a first port of call for scholars and researchers seeking to undertake new work at the many intersections of landscape and food. Each chapter provides an authoritative overview, a broad range of pertinent readings and references, and seeks to identify areas where new research is needed—though these may also be identified in the many fertile areas in which subjects and chapters overlap within the book.

Move from feeling anxious about the oil crisis to developing a positive visions and taking traction action to create a more self-reliant existence with this ground-breaking book. We live in an oil-dependent world, and have become reliant in a very short space of time, using vast reserves of oil in the process – and without planning for when the supply is not so plentiful. Most of us avoid thinking about what happens when the oil runs out (or becomes prohibitively expensive), but the reality may not be as bad as we think. The Transition Handbook shows how the inevitable and profound changes ahead could have a positive effect. Written by permaculture expert Rob Hopkins, he discusses the possibility of a rebirth of local communities, which will generate their own fuel, food and housing. These will encourage the development of local currencies, to keep money in the local area, and unleash a local 'skilling-up', so that people have more control over their lives. The growth in interest in the Transition model continues to be exponential. There are now more than 35 formal Transition Initiatives in the UK, including towns, cities, islands, villages and peninsulas, with more joining as the idea takes off. With little proactivity at government level, communities are taking matters into their own hands and acting locally. If your community has not yet become a Transition Initiative, this upbeat guide, filled with beautiful black and white photographs, offers you the tools to get started. The Transition Handbook is the perfect manual to guide communities, as they begin this 'energy descent' journey.

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: We are an urbanized species now. Since 2007, more than 50% of Earth s population lives in cities (UN-Habitat 2011). In countries of the global north, this share is even higher with 86% (UN-Habitat 2011). These are the indices for a contemporary exodus of humans into the cities which results in a dramatic shift of human spatial and material relationships with the rest of nature (Rees and Wackernagel 1996). Urbanization leads to a centralization of needs for natural resources and energy in densely populated areas. The provision for the needs of these densely populated areas is based on rural hinterlands. In times of cheap oil, these growing cities have a global impact as their provision networks have expanded to a global scale: their demand for food, fibre, energy and water is being met by a growing network of producers and importers in all parts of the world supported by high-tech communication and transport systems. The German Association of Organic Growers noted, for instance, an increasing need for long-distance transports of food from all over the world (BÖLW 2008). Germany now is a net-importer of vegetables and fruits (Ng & Aksoy 2008). These globalized food supply chains are highly dependent on cheap resources, especially energy for production, processing and transport. The environmental and social impacts of these activities are largely unknown at the place of product consumption. Cities not only in industrialized countries rely heavily on a global hinterland (Sassen 2005). Rees and Wackernagel (1996) understand cities even as black holes for resources. When calculating the ecological footprint of cities it shows that they are highly dependent on more area than they actually possess (Rees and Wackernagel 1996). The ecological footprint of Berlin s citizens, for instance, expands to 168-times the territory of the city (Schnauss 2001). An important share of this footprint relates to the provision of food, in the case of Berlin over 37% (Schnauss 2001). Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: 1INTRODUCTION1 1.1Normative implications of urbanization2 1.2Towards a strategic approach for an uncertain future: Resilient cities4 1.3Urban food systems7 1.4Urban agriculture: farming or gardening?10 1.5Definition of research gap13 1.6Matching research question14 1.7Aim of the thesis15 1.8Target group15 2METHODOLOGY16 2.1Case study selection16 2.2Semi-structured interviews17 2.3Analysis and theoretical [...]

This expansive Handbook guides readers through a multi-layered landscape of the interpretations and uses of transdisciplinary thinking and practices worldwide. It advances understanding of the strengths and limits of transdisciplinary research in the context of societal power relations, institutional structures and social inequalities. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

Creation and access to green spaces promotes individual human health, especially in therapeutic contexts among those suffering traumatic events. But what of the role of access to green space and the act of creating and caring for such places in promoting social health and well-being? Greening in the Red Zone asserts that creation and access to green spaces confers resilience and recovery in systems disrupted by violent conflict or disaster. This edited volume provides evidence for this assertion through cases and examples. The contributors to this volume use a variety of research and policy frameworks to explore how creation and access to green spaces in extreme situations might contribute to resistance, recovery, and resilience of social-ecological systems.

This book explores how lessons from past urban planning experiences can inform current debates on urban agriculture. Productive landscapes today have been posited as instruments for the positive transformation related to territorial fragility and abandonment, promoting social cohesion, food security and wider environmental and economic benefits. The book will re-map the way in which seeming landscape limitations and challenges can be turned into potential, innovation and a new lease of urban-rural life. It does so by drawing on significant past urban agricultural experiences in planning as vectors for new critical reflections relevant to re-igniting ideas for future envisioning of urban scenarios in which productive landscapes play fundamental transformative roles. The focus is on planning ideas and the roles of key individual planners, all of which have designed agricultural strategies for the city at some point in their careers. It intends to help us today reimagine urban-rural relationships, and the transformation of under or mis-used urban open spaces, peri-urban areas, fringe conditions and in-between spaces.

This Handbook presents a broad overview of the current research carried out in environmental psychology which puts into perspective quality of life and relationships with living spaces, and shows how this original analytical framework can be used to understand different environmental and societal issues. Adopting an original approach, this Handbook focuses on the links with other specialties in psychology, especially social and health psychology, together with other disciplines such as geography, architecture, sociology, anthropology, urbanism and engineering. Faced with the problems of society which involve the quality of life of individuals and communities, it is fundamental to consider the relationships an individual has with his different living spaces. This issue of the links between quality of life and environment is becoming increasingly significant with, at a local level, problems resulting from different types of annoyances, such as pollution and noise, while, at a global level, there is the central question of climate change with its harmful consequences for humans and the planet. How can the impact on well-being of environmental nuisances and threats (for example, natural risks, pollution, and noise) be reduced? How can the quality of life within daily living spaces (home, cities, work environments) be improved? Why is it important to understand the psychological issues of our relationship with the global environment (climatic warming, ecological behaviours)? This Handbook is intended not only for students of various disciplines (geography, architecture, psychology, town planning, etc.) but also for social decision-makers and players who will find in it both theoretical and methodological perspectives, so that psychological and environmental dimensions can be better taken into account in their working practices.

Although urban allotment gardening dates back to the nineteenth century, it has recently undergone a renaissance of interest and popularity. This is the result of greater concern over urban greenspace, food security and quality of life. This book presents a comprehensive, research-based overview of the various features, benefits and values associated with urban allotment gardening in Europe. The book is based on a European COST Action project, which brings together researchers and practitioners from all over Europe for the first detailed exploration of the subject on a continent-wide scale. It assesses the policy, planning and design aspects, as well as the social and ecological benefits of urban allotment gardening. Through an examination of the wide range of different traditions and practices across Europe, it brings together the most recent research to discuss the latest evolutions of urban allotment gardening and to help raise awareness and fill knowledge gaps. The book provides a multidisciplinary perspective, including insights from horticulture and soil science, ecology, sociology, urban geography, landscape, planning and design. The themes are underpinned by case studies from a number of European countries which supply a wide range of examples to illustrate different key issues.

The idea that nature provides services to people is one of the most powerful concepts to have emerged over the last two decades. It is shaping our understanding of the role that biodiverse ecosystems play in the environment and their benefits for humankind. As a result, there is a growing interest in operational and methodological issues surrounding ecosystem services amongst environmental managers, and many institutions are now developing teaching programmes to equip the next generation with the skills needed to apply the concepts more effectively. This handbook provides a comprehensive reference text on ecosystem services, integrating natural and social science (including economics). Collectively the chapters, written by the world's leading authorities, demonstrate the importance of biodiversity for people, policy and practice. They also show how the value of ecosystems to society can be expressed in monetary and non-monetary terms, so that the environment can be better taken into account in decision making. The significance of the ecosystem service paradigm is that it helps us redefine and better communicate the relationships between people and nature. It is shown how these are essential to resolving challenges such as sustainable development and poverty reduction, and the creation of a green economy in developing and developed world contexts.