Cultivating Resilience: Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming for Food, Health, and Environment – A Systematic Review

Abstract

This dataset supports the systematic review article "Cultivating Resilience: Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming for Food, Health, and Environment – A Systematic Review", which synthesises evidence from thirty-eight (38) studies examining how the integration of biological systems, smart technologies, architectural design, food engineering, and environmental management in urban agriculture and vertical farming contributes to a sustainable urban food, health, and environment nexus. The review covers multiple thematic dimensions, including biological systems and precision breeding (CRISPR-edited crops, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, microalgae), smart technologies and digital transformation (IoT, artificial intelligence, deep learning, digital twins, robotics, computational modelling), architectural integration and the built environment (green façades, building-integrated photovoltaics, agrivoltaics, green roofs, biophilic design), food security and nutrition, public health and indoor environmental quality, environmental sustainability and circular economy, and nexus interactions. The included studies span eight disciplinary clusters: Architecture, IT and Computational Science, PSDAL, Breeding, Biology, Public Health, and Food Science. Methodological approaches range from experimental studies, simulations, life cycle assessments, surveys, case studies, and conceptual reviews. The dataset includes Figure 1 (PRISMA 2020 Flow Diagram illustrating the study selection process from 1,207 initial records to 38 included studies), Supplementary Document 1 (PRISMA 2020 Checklist with 27 items completed for the systematic review), Supplementary Document 2 (Quality Assessment Criteria detailing the design-appropriate appraisal framework using MMAT, JBI, CASP, and ISO 14040/14044), Supplementary Document 3 (Full Data Extraction Form containing standardised data from all thirty-eight included studies including author(s), year, title, DOI, discipline, sub-field, research question, status, population, exposure, outcome, study design, tools and methods, key findings, food aspect, health aspect, environment aspect, nexus, quality tool, quality score, risk of bias, limitations, identified gap, implications, and key quotation), Table 1 (Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria), Table 2 (Search String and Retrieval Results from Scopus Database), Table 3 (Quality Assessment Results), Table 4 (Characteristics of Included Studies), and Table 5 (Synthesis of Key Findings). All files are available under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0 1.0) license.