Biofilters in urban agriculture: Exploring the potential to combine food production and stormwater treatment

This thesis examines the application of biofilters in combination with urban agriculture. In particular, the irrigation of vegetable crops with stormwater has the potential to provide multiple benefits including treatment of stormwater runoff and increasing food production. The focus of this thesis is on the identification of heavy metal uptake in plants and the use of different amendments to improve the safety of crops for consumption. Furthermore, the longer-term effectiveness of the selected amendment for metal immobilization will be discussed to determine the feasibility of a combined food production / stormwater treatment system.