ABSTRACT
Availability of fresh water will be the most critical environmental challenge facing the planet in future years. With its wasteful consumption of 70% of all accessible supplies, industrial agriculture is the single largest user of water in the world. Cities, meanwhile, struggle to secure water resources and fail to take advantage of on-site sources such as rainfall, which instead may damage the environment through urban stormwater runoff. As this chapter illustrates, urban agriculture is well poised to mitigate these water challenges by embracing water-efficient strategies integrated with existing urban infrastructure, building systems, and management approaches. These best practices-described in Catalog 3-take full advantage of urban resources, which are currently underutilized and discharged into the wastewater treatment stream.
