Prioritised indicators and baseline (D5.5)

This deliverable briefly introduces the concepts and principles of monitoring and indicators that monitoring is based on. We document the process of selecting indicators for monitoring, showing how a long list of potentially relevant candidate indicators was gradually narrowed down to a few selected indicators that might realistically be monitored in each ECS.

Of an initial list of more than 300 candidate indicators for monitoring, ca. 70 were considered potentially relevant to assess the effects of Edible City Solutions in the project’s Living Labs. The list is presented including details such as: indicator names, suggested units for measurement, economic, social and environmental dimensions, and web or literature references. The list of rejected indicators is also presented, since some of these could still be of interest to other cities in the future. We provide an overview of the FRCs’ and FCs’ feedback as the project has progressed.

This document has provided a basis for dialogue with other work packages and the FRC. When faced with the practicalities of establishing a monitoring system in each FRC, we identified a considerable gap between the academically desirable ambitions for monitoring and what was feasible and desirable for the Cities. Realistically, monitoring must be as simple as possible. Resources are generally not available to employ experts to gather data and it has proven difficult to attract citizen scientists. Qualitative methods are generally preferred over standardised, quantitative measures. The large variation in types of ECS, and their specific goals, makes comparison between ECS difficult. We conclude with preliminary prioritised lists of indicators related to the three FRC that have come furthest in their ECS implementation. In addition, we highlight the indicators included in the WP2 Survey, which aims to gather data from ECS beyond the EdiCitNet Living Labs.