Research projects

The effects of multiple and cascading crises, such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in violent conflicts worldwide, are emerging as major obstacles to achieving the SDGs, especially SDG 2. The impact of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine underlines the high dependence of agricultural production in Germany and the European Union (EU) on key imported resources, including energy and fertilisers. At the same time, current agricultural systems are the main driver of overshooting planetary boundaries, particularly with regard to changes in phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification and land use change. The bio-economic transformation pursued in SUSKULT has become much more relevant in recent years.

SUSKULT develops innovative systems for closed-loop agricultural production that take into account the key site conditions such as the availability of nutrients, water and heat for successful plant production. At the same time, they meet the increasing demands for a sustainable and socially acceptable agriculture in terms of product quality, resource conservation and regionality. SUSKULT addresses one of the most pressing issues of the future, namely how to meet the challenges of the vulnerability of global supply chains, finite phosphorus resources, high energy consumption in fertiliser production and water and soil pollution by phosphorus and reactive nitrogen through cycle-based, sustainable and resilient agricultural systems.

The overall goal of the SUSKULT vision is to establish urban circular agricultural production as an innovative future sector of the bio-based economy in Germany. SUSKULT develops technological and political solutions and adaptation strategies for a comprehensive NEWtrient® transformation. In the NEWtrient® transformation, wastewater treatment plants of the future ('NEWtrient® centres') (see Figure 1) are central interfaces for the metropolitan integrated recovery and valorisation of the essential resources water, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, CO2, heat and other resource flows for a future-proof and sustainable food production in Germany.

Figure 1: Schematic representation of the ‘NEWtrient® Centre’ (©Fraunhofer UMSICHT).

The ILS is responsible for developing the distribution potential of the optimised SUSKULT approach in Germany. With the help of a multifactorial GIS analysis, the theoretical potential (potential open spaces, suitable wastewater treatment plant sites, local contextual conditions) is determined and meaningful locations for NEWtrient® centres are derived. Based on the theoretical potential, the practical suitability will be determined through participatory research.

SUSKULT II builds on the predecessor project SUSKULT.

Further information:

• SUSKULT Project website
• SUSKULT-Video (dt)
• Lebensmittel der Zukunft (Multimediastory on biooekonomie.de, 28.09.2021, dt)
• Steines, Ann-Kristin; Eisenberg, Annika; Weith, Thomas; Specht, Kathrin; Haberland, Marcel (2024): Umsetzungshilfe des SUSKULT-Ansatzes: Kreislaufbasierte Agrarsysteme für die Stadt- und Raumplanung. Dortmund. https://doi.org/10.58122/0h5h-kg92.
• Steines, Ann-Kristin; Schulwitz, Martin; Haberland, Marcel (2024): SUSKULT Scenario Study. Translated by Steines, Ann-Kristin und Eisenberg, Annika. Hrsg. v. ILS Research gGmbH. Dortmund. https://doi.org/10.58122/qfs7-tk54.
• Steines, Ann-Kristin; Specht, Kathrin; Iodice, Chiara-Charlotte (2023): Nachhaltige Lebensmittelproduktion in der Stadt. Think global, eat local. In: IzR – Informationen zur Raumentwicklung 4/2022, 86–97.
• Steines, Ann-Kristin; Haberland, Marcel (2022): Wie aus häuslichem Abwasser frische Tomaten werden – die künftige Rolle von Kläranlagen für eine Landwirtschaft in der Stadt. ILS-TRENDS 1/22. Dortmund.
• Schulwitz, Martin; Reimer, Mario; Steines, Ann-Kristin (2020): 40 Tonnen Tomaten von der Kläranlage. Das Agrarsystem der Zukunft kommt ganz ohne Erde aus und nutzt im Sinne der Kreislaufwirtschaft die Nährstoffe aus häuslichem Abwasser. In: Transforming Cities, H. 4, S. 78–81.