EN1989-Land-use planning and agriculture in peri-urban areas_2024-25

With the increase of world demography and the need to concentrate human activities, urban areas have largely increased since the pre-industrial era, and a large number of megacities (> 10 million inhabitants) exists nowadays. This tendency will rise during the next years, and it is estimated that 1.2 million km² of (pseudo-)natural lands will be converted in urban areas in 2030, conversion that concerns especially arable lands. This decrease of arable lands is not consistent with the increase in food demand. Therefore, strategies must be developed in order to protect existing arable lands in the vicinity of cities (through public policies and local governance strategies) and new forms of agricultural systems have to emerge within the urban areas, accounting for the constraints of urban and peri-urban environments (e.g., climate, pollution, available space, social demand, governance).This course aims to provide knowledge concerning the specificities of urban and peri-urban agriculture, by dealing with the following topics:Diversity of forms (e.g., market gardening, Z-farming),multifunctionality (e.g., food supply, waste recycling, landscape design) and sustainability of urban and peri-urban agriculture,Public policies, local governance and regulations for (peri-)urban agriculture conservation and development.