App: Hali Grow
Hosted in ArcGIS Online:
Mission Statement
With the rise of food prices due to the pandemic, many Canadians have resorted to examining alternatives options to traditional grocery shopping such as home food gardening. In September 2020, 51% of Canadians reported that they grew at least one vegetable or fruit at home with one out of five gardeners new to home food production in 2020 (Music et al., 2022). Growing food allows individuals to have control over their food sources and it can be a great way to reduce your overall carbon emissions. To examine the shift in home gardening an interdisciplinary study done in the Agri-food analytics lab at Dalhousie University uses GIS and crowdsourcing to collect data on home gardening in Nova Scotia (Lal, 2020).
We have created an app that builds on this research and makes it easier for people in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take part in producing their own food. Using satellite imagery from Landsat 8, LIDAR and soil type data from the municipality we were able to find variables such as soil type, soil moisture, surface temperature and sunlight to create a suitability index for the ideal areas to produce the most common vegetable and fruits in the Maritimes.
References
Lal, R. (2020). Home gardening and urban agriculture for advancing food and nutritional security in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Food Security, 12(4), 871–876. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-020-01058-3
Music, J., Mullins, L., Charlebois, S., Large, C., & Mayhew, K. (2022). Seeds and the city: A review of municipal home food gardening programs in Canada in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1), 273. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01301-6
Video Presentation
Documentation
Team Members
Catherine Brenan: My name is Catherine Brenan (she/her), and I am a Dalhousie University undergraduate student completing a Combined Honours in Environmental Science and Chemistry with a Certificate in GIS. My research interests include using spatial modelling to understand carbon stock on the seafloor. I am excited about the app challenge since it will be a great experience to learn more about the different Esri tools and how they can be applied to urban ecology and conservation.
Emma Taniguchi: Hi! My name is Emma Taniguchi, and I am a fifth-year undergraduate student completing a BSc Honours in Environmental Science, a minor in Oceanography, and a certificate in GIS at Dalhousie University. My honours research focused on the lens of environmental injustice in the country as we move forward in addressing the climate crisis. I used ArcGIS Pro to geospatially analyze the relationship between hydroelectric dam placement and Indigenous and other marginalized communities in Canada. With my research endeavours, I hope to use geospatial tools to make the world a fairer and more equitable place while addressing challenges related to climate change and environmental degradation.