Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

occupies less that 50% of the city. The Gold Coast also experiences a subtropicalclimate, with relatively mild winters and humid summers and, although rainfall is moreprevalent during the hotter months, the city enjoys precipitation all year round. Theseclimatic qualities coupled with the opportunities offered by large areas of open spacesmake the Gold Coast one of Australia’s potential hot spots for urban agriculture toflourish and become a significant part of the urban fabric.2 MethodologyThis project was designed to extend our knowledge of the social, economic andpolitical context for urban agriculture in Australia and to explore the potential forextending its practice in the future. It comprised three main elements:1. A systematic review of existing studies of urban agriculture in Australia andelsewhere, including any studies of the barriers to its extension and of the likelyimpact of climate change on the patterns and viability of various urbanagricultural practices in Australian cities.2. Case study research in two Australian cities (Melbourne and Gold Coast)exploring the range of urban agriculture practices, including an assessment ofits current and future contribution to urban food security in each locality. Eachcase study involves the collection and analysis of relevant policy material, localstudies and a series of one-to-one interviews with key local stakeholders,including researchers, policy makers and practitioners from local and Stategovernments. Melbourne & the Gold Coast were selected because of theirinnovations in urban agriculture & the opportunity to use existing open space innew ways.3. An assessment of the extent to which local urban agriculture and food securitystrategies make a positive contribution to local climate change adaptationstrategies.We describe the case study element in more detail below.2.1 Case study researchCase study research is commonly used to explore in detail aspects of a particular casethat are not amenable to large scale, extensive research methods such as surveys.While not tied to any particular method of data collection and analysis, case studiesoften combine quantitative and qualitative or extensive and intensive techniques toexplore cases in great detail, providing what is often referred to as ‘rich-thick’descriptions (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).Case studies should also be clear cases of something of theoretical significance to thestudy in question. In this case the case studies are of two Australian cities with ratherdifferent urban trajectories and profiles of urban agriculture. Melbourne was declared acity in 1847 (twelve years after its founding) and is now the second largest city inAustralia in terms of its metropolitan area, governed by 26 city and five shire councils.The City of the Gold Coast was approved by the Queensland state government as thename of the local authority in 1959 and the city is now the sixth largest in the country,while the local authority is the second largest after Brisbane. While Melbourne has along tradition of meeting many of its food needs from within its immediate hinterland,Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 104