Listen to the Urban Brussels #3 podcast here! Featuring Kim Tondeur (Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering (HYDR)) and Yves Van Parys (Œuvre Royale du Coin de Terre de Jette).
The demand for urban agriculture is rising in Brussels Capital Region (BCR). However, water resources are getting scarcer, and a combination of climate change impacts and socio-demographic factors will expose the water resources of the BCR to even more acute pressure. A rise in the price of tap water - often used for irrigation - is also pending. In this context, although urban agriculture increases water demand, little is done to properly articulate sustainable urban agriculture and integrated water management. To address these issues, the VUB HYDR department collaborated with Œuvre Royale du Coin de Terre de Jette, Etats Généraux de l’Eau à Bruxelles, Commune de Jette, and Bruxelles Environnement, to investigate the co-creation of alternative irrigation solutions in an urban living lab context with local actors.
"There is a growing demand on the one hand for gardening sites in Brussels, and therefore a growing demand for water, and on the other hand there exist forcing disturbances in the water cycle due to human and climatic changes. There is a lot of interest from institutional actors in Brussels to develop sustainable agriculture, that’s really one point of focus, and another point of focus is to develop an integrated water management. But the link between these two domains is just not done." (Kim Tondeur, HYDR)
The study was an interdisciplinary urban research project integrating earth sciences, engineering, social sciences and art, and designed to address the preoccupation of multiple stakeholders (including citizen-gardeners, civil society organisations and public administrations at both the district and regional level) in food production and water governance.
"Working with stakeholders affected our initial proposal profoundly. In the initial proposal we had a more balanced project between on-site field work and the will to bring the insights of these pilot cases to feed the research made in a larger regional scale. But the contact with Coin Terre brought one important change. It was obvious from the start that gardeners need concrete material solutions for water and for irrigation. This was the first thing that diverted us from a more theoretical approach and brought the project to be applied research." (Kim Tondeur, HYDR)
"Speaking of stakeholders... we are very dependent of the municipal administration because the land is owned by the municipality. This project allowed us to create a (more) open mind among the administration about the issue because we able to build on scientific work and insights related to alternative irrigation solutions." (Yves Van Parys, Coin de Terre)
The project “Urban Farming: how to irrigate?” focused on two urban gardening sites from the Jette district, in order to investigate irrigation habits, needs and beliefs of citizen-gardeners together with their knowledge of local water flows.
"It's really difficult to have a common thread or universal solution for all gardening sites. Because each site is so different and very specific, in fact you need a lot of creativity, a lot of ingenuity to invent new systems of water collection, use, etc. time after time." (Yves Van Parys, Coin de Terre)
All in all, the project aimed to propose answers to the questions addressed in this study by helping strengthen the collaboration of local and regional actors, in a bottom-up approach.
VUB project members: Margaret Chen, Boud Verbeiren, Charlotte Wirion, Kim Tondeur (HYDR-VUB) | Collaborators: Œuvre Royale du Coin de Terre de Jette, Etats Généraux de l’Eau à Bruxelles, Commune de Jette, Bruxelles Environnement
