USAGE – Urban Stormwater Aquaponics Garden Environment

The objective of this project is to create the green-garden installation for the food production which is based on aquaponic systems supported on rain and stormwater collection infrastructure. Alongside to food production, the infrastructure will play an educational and social role, integrating the citizens, creating the workplaces and propagating the environment-friendly behaviours. The design of the system will be suited to the urban tissue thanks to local community engagement and urban planners work. The aquaponic installation connected with the water collection and treatment system will create a meeting place and play a social role by integrating neighbourhoods, local citizens, boosting entrepreneurship and rising the knowledge about climate changes.

The project takes the Urban Living Lab (ULL) approach with six interrelated, feedback-driven work packages. It’s a complex project, containing aquaponics with stormwater treatment and the technologic “mixture” with social component. ULL methodology assumes moving almost all research activities to the project site. Big part of infrastructure will be located in two urban sites (Wroclaw and Oslo) and research on them will be performed there. In this “cocreation” process subject infrastructure is developed in front of the local community and with their engagement. Researchers in this setting can be seen as “invited experts” that intervene within stormwater aquaponic installation but are doing this “on behalf” of society. Aquaponic farm in modern, dense cities may help accomplish the search for amorphous forms, offering expected variety and contrast in highly urbanized context. Even more important advantage that aquaponic farm offers to urban hierarchies is its potential of social interactions.

Project funding: EEA and Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014 – 2021, Narodowe Centrum Badań i Rozwoju

Project leader: Water Science and Technology Institute – H2O SciTech

Project partners: CASE – Centrum Analiz Społeczno-Ekonomicznych (Poland), Norwegian Institute for Water Research (Norway), Warsaw University of Technology  (Poland), Politechnika Krakowska im. Tadeusza Kościuszki/Cracow University of Technology (Poland, The Fridtjof Nansen Foundation at Polhøgda (Norway)