Material flows and resource efficiencies in urban and peri-urban agriculture in the capital Khartoum, Sudan

Funding: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Project duration: 2006-2009
Project leaders: Dr. Jens Gebauer, Prof. Dr. Andreas Buerkert, Dr. Kamal El-Siddig
Doctoral candidates: MSc Sahar Abdalla, MSc Ishtiag Abdalla, MSc Moiez Fadul

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) is becoming increasingly important, especially in Africa's major cities. It provides food and other goods for the urban population, which is often growing twice as fast as the country's overall population. However, a high input of fertilizers, agrochemicals, the use of urban waste and wastewater for the production of plant and animal products entails different risks of contamination of products and the environment depending on the location. The proposed institute partnership intends to use a targeted combination of training and research components to record (nutrient) material flows in the UPA and their negative side effects using the example of the Sudanese capital Khartoum. In addition, these studies are intended to contribute to the development of proposals for increasing resource efficiency and for estimating the contamination of soils and horticultural products with pesticides, heavy metals and faecal germs.

To this end, four representative farms will be selected in a first step. In the second step, the horizontal inputs and outputs of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) at the soil-plant-animal interface are recorded in the selected sample farms over the course of the year. Atmospheric emissions (denitrification and ammonia loss) will be determined at representative points in time using a mobile photoacoustic multi-gas monitor and leachate-related nutrient losses (N, P and K) will be measured by installing Si-carbide suction plates. In addition, selected horticultural products are examined for their contamination with pesticides, heavy metals and faecal bacteria.