Making urban agriculture resource-efficient

The use of rain and sewage water as resources for urban agriculture and the testing of modular waste water technologies – these are the focuses of the research project ROOF WATER-FARM. Building-integrated farming makes productive use of waste water streams where they occur. As associated partner to the Technical University Berlin (TU), Fraunhofer UMSICHT, Nolde und Partner, TERRA URBANA and the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment, inter 3 investigates innovative value, potentials and feasibility of ROOF WATER-FARMs.

Combining water and agriculture on the roof

On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the team investigates technologies at a demonstration and test site at Block 6 in Berlin-Kreuzberg (an IBA social housing project from 1987 with an innovative water concept) combining waste water treatment and water-based plant and fish production. The aim of the project is to use rain, black and grey water streams for agricultural purposes where they occur. At the same time technical, socio-economic and ecological potentials, possible hygienic risks and the transferability of these systems to urban spaces are analyzed. Based on this concrete approaches for further development and the diffusion of the inter-sectorial infrastructure concepts are developed.

Identifying innovative potentials and developing aim-oriented strategies

inter 3 investigates impacts with regards to municipal water management facilities and socio-economic impacts of the systems on selected urban districts. It develops innovative strategies for the acceptance and implementation of ROOF WATER-FARMs. For this purpose, results of the technical, energetic, environmental, hygienic and urban design analyses will be merged. Using the constellation analysis, drivers and alliances, resistance and need for regulation, conflicts (of aims) and framework conditions will be visualized. Strategic starting points and consistent packages of measures for the diffusion of the ROOF WATER-FARM-Conzepts will provide the basis for recommendations for action and capacity development tailored to different target groups.