Systemic operative framework to support the integration of urban agriculture and socio-ecological resilience in informal settlements: A dynamic urban metabolism approach to food security

• UA drives circular resource flows and food security in informal settlements. • Governance and tenure security accelerate UA adoption beyond technical capacity. • Framework links indicators, ILDs, and SD model in a diagnostic pipeline. • Greywater reuse and biodigestion achieve ∼77 % irrigation and 17–52 % energy cover. • Transferable systemic architecture for data-scarce informal urban contexts. Urban informal settlements face acute challenges in food, water, and energy security, compounded by fragile governance and fragmented infrastructure. This study demonstrates that urban agriculture (UA), when embedded within a systemic urban metabolism (UM) framework, serves as a leverage point to drive circular resource flows and improve food security in these contexts. We develop and validate a four-stage diagnostic-to-simulation framework comprising multidimensional indicator derivation, a five-layer systemic scaffold, Interactive Loop Diagrams (ILDs), and a Forrester-style system dynamics model calibrated for Ciudad de Gosen, Lima, Peru, an informal settlement of approximately 6300 inhabitants. Simulation results show that rooftop and unbuilt-land cultivation can satisfy household vegetable and fruit demand, biodigestion can supply 17–52 % of household energy needs, and greywater reuse sustains irrigation for most cultivated areas, stabilizing at approximately 77 %. Critically, governance reforms and land tenure security emerge as the primary accelerators of adoption dynamics, producing cumulative improvements in diet diversity, waste reduction, and household food expenditures, underscoring that UA performance is conditioned more by governance and participation feedbacks than by technical capacity alone. The framework provides a transferable diagnostic pipeline linking indicators, feedback logic, and dynamic simulation to support circular food security assessment in data-scarce informal settlements worldwide.