Ecological Footprint

The ecological footprint measures how much nature it takes to support people. It is an ecological accounting system. It contrasts how much biologically productive area people use for their consumption to how much biologically productive area is available (biocapacity).

More specifically, the ecological footprint is the biologically productive area needed to provide for everything people use: fruits and vegetables, fish, wood, fibers, absorption of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use, and space for buildings and roads. Biocapacity is the productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature. Footprint and biocapacity can be compared at the individual, regional, national or global scale. Both footprint and biocapacity change every year with number of people, per person consumption, efficiency of production, and productivity of ecosystems.

At a global scale, footprint assessments show how big humanity's demand is compared to what planet Earth can renew. Global Footprint Network calculates the global ecological footprint from UN and other data for over 200 nations. They estimate that as of 2012 humanity has been using natural capital 1.6 times as fast as nature can renew it.

Ecological footprint analysis is widely applied around the Earth as an indicator of environmental sustainability. It can be used to measure and manage the use of resources throughout the economy and explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods and services, organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations. Since 2006, a first set of ecological footprint standards exist that detail both communication and calculation procedures.

In 2016, the Global Footprint Network estimated the global ecological footprint as 1.6 planet Earths; that is, they judged that ecological services were being used 1.6 times as quickly as they were being renewed.

Ecological footprints can be calculated at any scale: for an activity, a person, a community, a city, a region, a nation or humanity as a whole. Cities, due to population concentration, have large ecological footprints and have become ground zero for footprint reduction.

Global Footprints: Currently there is no fixed way to measure global footprints, and any attempts to describe the capacity of an ecosystem in a single number is a massive simplification of thousands of key renewable resources, which are not used or replenished at the same rate. However, there has been some convergence of metrics and standards since 2006.

City Ecological Footprints: are being measured. There are two types of measurements in use. The first measures ecosystem displacement which is defined as City Area minus remaining green spaces. This is an area measurement that does not include human or other biological activity. The Second attempts to quantify surviving ecosystem health. Specifically, it attempts to quantify both area and biological health of ecosystems surviving inside city areas such as nature reserves, parks, other green spaces. City footprints are being calculated and ranked with city ecological indexes.

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