Ecological Footprint Accounting Research Articles

Ecological Footprint Accounting: Thirty Years and Still Gathering Steam

Ecological Footprint Accounting: Thirty Years and Still Gathering Steam

Assessing mangrove conservation in China by integrating mangrove ecosystem into ecological footprint accounting

Mangrove conservation effort have been undertaken in China, but there is still a lack of quantitative assessment of its eco-environmental benefits. The ecological footprint (EF) is an important indicator of the sustainability of ecosystems, with carbon footprint (CF) and biocapacity (BC) being key indicators of forest ecosystems. Despite the high carbon sequestration capacity of mangrove ecosystems, they have not yet been included in EF. This study introduces mangrove ecosystems into EF accounting and assesses the eco-environmental benefits of mangrove conservation in China. To achieve this, the net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of mangrove forests was estimated based on the gross primary production and respiration rates. Average forest carbon sequestration (AFCS) and yield factor, key parameters of CF and BC, were calculated from NEE for the first time. The CF and BC of mangrove ecosystems were then refined using newly defined AFCS and yield factor. The proposed framework was applied to the whole mangrove forests in China to assess mangrove conservation efforts. The results showed that the average CF of mangrove forests is about 1000 M ha, which is lower than that of terrestrial forests, while the BC of mangroves is not as high as expected due to the limited area of mangroves. CF and BC vary along the coastline, whereby CF tends to decrease with decreasing latitude while BC remains high at low latitudes owing to the large mangrove area. There is no significant decreasing trend in CF, but BC increases with increasing mangrove area. The newly introduced ecological footprint accounting of mangrove ecosystems suggests that mangrove conservation in China should focus on ecosystem health and expand the area of forestable land. These findings will benefit future management of mangrove ecosystems in China and other countries.

Assessing the UAE's Efforts to Combat Climate Change using Ecological Footprint Accounting


 
 
 Growing concern about climate change created the need for a globally applied system of accounting to track demand on the earth’s resources and their supply. An ecological footprint analysis provides an objective metric for the ecological impact a nation has on the environment, measured in global hectares/capita. Using data provided by the Global footprint Network, we calculate that the UAE has an ecological deficit of 9.2 global hectares/person but has only 9% of the area required to offset the cost of its environmental impact. The UAE is working to reduce this deficit and can approach this by 1) increasing its biocapacity and 2) reducing its ecological footprint. A Pearson Correlation Coefficient was computed to assess the linear relationship between each of the 6 land use metrics described by Wackernagel (1990) and the total ecological footprint of the UAE. Loss of fisheries was found to significantly impact the biocapacity, r(37) = [.998], p= [1.3347E-53], while carbon emissions have contributed the most to the ecological footprint r(37) = [ .986], p = [ 6.7143E-36]. These data can inform options for the targeted support one of earth’s most vulnerable ecosystems and encourage increased use of renewable energy sources. This project is supported by the U.S. Dept. of State Diplomacy Lab (#2209921) and Bluefield State University International Initiatives. 
 
 

Environmental, Economic, and Nutritional Impact of Food Waste in a Portuguese University Canteen

High food waste values have been reported in university canteens in different countries. This study aims to evaluate food waste related to the consumption stage in a Portuguese university canteen and its environmental, economic, and nutritional impact. Data collection was performed at a Portuguese university with about 7000 students. Food waste (leftovers and plate waste) was assessed over 10 days by physical weighing. The Ecological Footprint Accounting methodology was used, combined with an assessment of the ecological footprint. The energy and nutritional contents of meals wasted were estimated using the software Nutrium® 4.0. The economic impact of food waste was obtained considering the daily meal price. During study period, 4374 meals were evaluated, corresponding to 1599 kg of food produced. A total of 189.5 kg of food was wasted, being higher for plate waste (164.1 kg) than for leftovers (25.3 kg). The meat group presented the highest total waste value (78.1 kg). Daily food waste represented an economic loss of €140 and an ecological footprint of 0.1 gha. About 8% of energy, 11% of protein, 9% of fat, and 5% of carbohydrates were lost per meal. The high food waste values observed (about 13.4%) estimate a monthly economic loss of €3080, an ecological footprint of 2.8 gha, and a total food waste of 417 kg.

Ecological Footprint and tourism: Development and sustainability monitoring of ecotourism packages in Mediterranean Protected Areas

Ecotourism is a potential lever for sustainable development, but common standards and approaches lack to manage and monitor the impact of defined packages on natural resources and local communities. A customized version of Ecological Footprint Accounting is evaluated here to assess its usefulness as analytical tool to quantitatively analyse the environmental pressures associated with ecotourism packages developed in and around Protected Areas in the Mediterranean Region. Within the framework of the EU-funded DestiMED project, a bottom-up, participatory approach was developed for managing and monitoring 13 ecotourism packages by involving local tourism stakeholders and service providers. The application of Ecological Footprint Accounting relied on data sourced from local service providers to complement existing statistics and datasets, and was used in an empirical iterative process to provide local tourism stakeholders with recommendations to guide them in the management of a low-impact tourism offer. International travel to and from the 13 destinations was found to place a Footprint on the environment – mainly because of carbon emissions – higher than that of the entire stay at destination. Footprint results of the packages revealed some overlooked tourism's impacts on ecosystems due to unexpected drivers, such as the Food & Drink services offered to tourists at destination. Results indicate that managing tourism product development at destination, and investing in providing knowledge on the principles of sustainability, could lower ecotourism's impacts whilst contributing to building resilience and aiding the post-COVID recovery of destinations. This article tested the applicability and usefulness of Ecological Footprint Accounting (EFA) to assess ecotourism packages developed in and around Protected Areas (PAs) across the Mediterranean Region. A customized version of Ecological Footprint Accounting is suitable for managers and can be used to quantitatively assess the multiple pressures of the activities included in ecotourism packages through a bottom up approach. This innovative monitoring process typically fosters the engagement with the local service providers, which is key for a sustainability monitoring of the touristic offer. Applied to ecotourism packages, EFA allows identifying the main ecosystems under pressure as well as the main drivers causing such pressures. This information is useful to understand the actual impacts caused by the packages offered in their territory, and – when combined with tangible recommendations for improvements – to help adjust the services offered in the packages to possibly reduce environmental impacts.

Ecological footprint accounting of mining areas and metal production of the world

Mining is environmentally disruptive which requires tons of earth materials to be removed and causes modification in original land cover. The processing of materials also requires huge amount of energy. In this study, we calculated the Ecological Footprint (EF) of built-up and carbon absorption land for global mining activities with a dataset provided by Werner and colleagues. We first corrected the yield factor and equivalence factor of built-up land. The life cycle inventory to calculate the EF of carbon absorption land was obtained from literatures. According to the findings, tailings storage facility, waste rock dump and riverine tailings disposal had higher EF of built-up land. EF of carbon absorption land was significantly huge, and underground mines had generally higher values than surface mines whereas surface mines had higher EF of built-up land. We also discussed some mechanisms regarding how to reduce the EF of carbon absorption land.

Biocapacity and cost-effectiveness benefits of increased peatland restoration in Scotland

Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting is a widely-used ecological accounting framework which tracks human demand against the biosphere's rate of regeneration. However, current national assessments do not yet include carbon-dense peatlands, hindering the evaluation of peatland biocapacity contributions. Also, the economic efficiency of peatland restoration is understudied and needed to inform land use decisions. We provide the first assessment of Scotland's biocapacity and add peatlands as a novel land type. We then project the biocapacity impacts in 2050 of current peatland restoration targets and various alternative management scenarios. Finally, we estimate the cost per tonne of greenhouse gas abated of various peatland restoration scenarios, and compare this with estimates of afforestation mitigation costs from the literature. Our results show that Scotland's per-person biocapacity exceeds the UK average by a factor of three. However, despite covering 25% of land area, peatland biocapacity increases Scotland's biocapacity total by only 2%, while the Carbon Footprint of degraded peatlands increases Scotland's ecological deficit by 40%. Current peatland restoration targets of the Scottish Government are estimated to reduce the national ecological deficit by only 9% in 2050. The cost-effectiveness of peatland restoration is context-dependent, and extremely cost-effective methods are applicable to peatland areas far exceeding current government restoration targets. Our findings provide land managers with evidence in favour of increased peatland restoration, both in terms of boosting biocapacity, and economic cost-effectiveness.

Determinants of the load capacity factor in China: A novel dynamic ARDL approach for ecological footprint accounting

The load capacity factor tracks a certain ecological threshold by comparing biocapacity and ecological footprint, thus enabling a comprehensive research on environmental degradation. It can be observed that the environmental degradation rises with decreasing the load capacity factor. However, until now, researchers have empirically considered environmental issues using ecological footprint, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide emissions, and similar indicators. The use of these indicators can lead to the neglect of the supply side of environmental issues. To compensate for this shortcoming, this study aims to investigate the influence of human capital, natural resource rent, per capita income, and energy intensity on the load capacity factor, which focuses on environmental concerns on both the supply and demand sides. In this regard, the study utilizes a recently developed dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) simulation model for China from 1981 to 2017. The results of dynamic ARDL demonstrates that an increase in income, energy intensity, and resource rent leads to a decline in the load capacity factor, while human capital improves environmental quality in the long-run. Moreover, according to Narayan and Narayan (2010) approach, the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is valid for China because the short-run income elasticity is lower than the long-run elasticity (−0.644 was compared with −0.460). Based on the results, policy recommendations for China's sustainable development are presented.

Efficiency and Driving Factors of Green Development of Tourist Cities Based on Ecological Footprint

For tourist cities, the ecological footprint not only affects tourism competitiveness but also affects green development. This paper adopted an improved ecological footprint accounting model, used a series of relevant indicators of ecological footprint to compare the green development efficiency, and explored the main driving factors of the per capita ecological footprint and city classification of 16 major tourist cities in China from 2000 to 2017. The results show that the green development efficiency of the studied tourist cities still needs to be improved. Secondly, the panel data analysis shows that the proportion of the primary industry in GDP, the proportion of the secondary industry in GDP, the per capita investment in fixed assets, and the length of highways per 10,000 people can increase the per capita ecological footprint. Then, the cluster analysis divides the selected tourist cities into four categories, and different types of cities need to be managed differently. Finally, this paper puts forward corresponding suggestions to improve the quality of the green development of selected tourist cities. The in-depth study of the ecological footprint in this paper will provide a scientific basis for tourist cities to promote green economic growth that considers ecological footprint and GDP and achieve sustainable development of tourism.

Sustainable food transition in Portugal: Assessing the Footprint of dietary choices and gaps in national and local food policies

The food system is increasingly acknowledged as the single largest reason for humans' transgression of key planetary limits and it is gaining centrality in our societal run-up towards a sustainable future, especially at city level. In Portugal, a country characterized by high meat and fish consumption, noticeable food wastage, and high urbanization level, fully understanding and then transforming the food system is of priority. Here we investigate the significance of food in comparison to other daily anthropogenic demands and the current sourcing and resource intensities profiles of dietary patterns at Portuguese national and city level through Ecological Footprint Accounting. A critical assessment of gaps in national and local food policies to trigger a major transformation in the Portuguese food system is also conducted on the basis of a newly proposed analytical framework.Results show that food consumption in Portugal is the single largest reason (≈30%) for transgressing the carrying capacity of Earth ecosystems but, despite the urgent need for changes in Portuguese food systems, major deficiencies in local policy implementation exist with weak policy commitment, coordination, and lacking institutional capacity as food policies – especially at the local level – are still not prioritized. Similarities with other countries within Europe and their implications are also discussed.

Using Ecological Footprint Accounting model as a tool for sustainable development in the hospitality industry: Evidence from Egypt

In recent years, the trend toward the sustainability reports are increasing especially within the era of the integrating reporting. In the same time the efforts of the government for improving the hospitality sector represented in the tourism industry in Egypt is one of the main objectives of 2030 plan. The impacts of the hospitality industry on the environment have become widely acknowledged. As tourism is predicted to continue growing in the next decade, there is an urgent need for the hospitality sector to embrace sustainability principles in order that tourists may continue travelling, while placing minimal impacts on the natural environment. Although there is much debate over the concepts of sustainability and how it is to be measured, the Ecological Footprint has recently been proposed as a key indicator of sustainable hospitality activities, due to its abilities to quantify the amount of resources needed for hospitality activities, and enable comparisons between hospitality components through its global, standardized measurements. The Ecological Footprint is a tool that measures humanity's demands upon the natural biosphere and its effect on the national resources of the countries. It tracks the biologically productive land and water required to produce all the resources a population consumes and to segregate its wastes. Information was collected on respondents from hotels managers and they requested to provide information on accommodation aspects such as occupancy rates, property sizes, average water and energy usage, waste management routines and information to determine the average ecological footprints of tourists in the selected hotels. In order to understand the relationship between the ecological footprint and tourist behaviors. The analysis of this information provide an indication of the current green status of hospitality and for better environmental practices.

Incorporating carbon sink of harvested wood products into ecological footprint accounting: model and case study

ABSTRACT Ecological footprint (EF) accounting system is widely used in assessing environmental sustainability at various spatial scales. To improve the EF performance, a new EF calculation framework was established in this study, in which HWP is considered as carbon sinks and the model was then applied to the Yangtze River basin of China. Results showed that (1) carbon sink in the basin is about 2.99 Tg per year and it varies substantially across subbasins, which has a nonlinear relationship with net primary productivity; (2) available biocapacity calculated in the whole basin increases from 0.5068 to 0.5759 national ha (nha) per capita when incorporating the carbon sinks. In a few subbasins, the added biocapacity is even larger than the biocapacity estimated from the conventional approach; (3) the EF of the basin is 5.598 nha per capita and it is much larger than its biological carrying capacity (BC), indicating that ecological deficit is ubiquitous across the basin. If carbon sinks are considered, the ecological deficit would decrease by 3.2–14.3% for different regions in the basin. It is necessary to incorporate HWP and other potential terrestrial carbon sinks in the EF accounting, and more efforts are needed in improving carbon sink accuracy.

The role of ecological footprint and the changes in degree days on environmental sustainability in the USA.

In addition to the adverse effect of extreme weather and weather variation across the globe, the ecological deficit accounting associated with the USA is perceived to have further worsen the country's environmental quality. Considering the aforementioned motivation, this study examined the effects of cooling degree days, heating degree days and ecological footprint on environmental degradation in the USA over the period of 1960 to 2016. While employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Bounds testing to cointegration approaches, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is further incorporated in the estimation model to avoid estimation bias thus enhancing a robust estimate. The result overwhelmingly found that the cooling degree days, the heating degree days and the ecological footprint accounting aggravates the country's environmental degradation. Worse still, the study further presents that there is short-run adverse impacts of the heating and cooling degree days, and the short-run and long-run ecological footprint on the country's environmental sustainability. Moreover, there is statistical evidence that the income growth in the USA especially in the long run will not also improve the environmental quality. Irrespective of the income-environmental degradation long-run relationship, the relieving impact of income growth on environmental degradation is observed in the short run. In general, the study presents relevant policy pathway for implementation.

Ecological Footprint Accounting of Non- Biodegradable Wastes of Angeles City, Philippines: The Anthropogenic Shift to Biodegradables

This study factored the Ecological Footprint Accounting on the Municipal Solid Wastes of Angeles City, Philippines using the Waste Analysis and Characterization Summary for 2015, with projections subdivided into the solid wastes of Angeleǹos, expressed as waste generation per capita, depict the level of waste consumption, quality of urban habitat, and the acceleration on waste disposal based on the population growth rate and diversion rate. The results were quantitatively analyzed using Ecological Footprint Accounting and interpreted in monetary terms through Benefit-Cost Analysis. The major research processes include: Analysis of waste generation per capita; Waste Projections net of targeted diversion on non-biodegradables; Cost Analysis on diverted wastes; and Income Analysis on Recyclables. The waste generation for the next five years will be generated 90% by households; 10% by educational and other institutions. With waste composition of 37% biodegradable, 20% recyclables and 43% non-biodegradable. By the year 2022, the city is expected to generate 159 kg yr-1∙106 with waste mitigation at a decreasing rate of 96.89% despite the population acceleration at 136% or equivalent to 561,000 constituents. Lastly, the five-year Benefit-Cost Analysis yielded a budgetary savings of PhP395M, equivalent to US$ 7.4M or an average municipal annual cost savings of 39%

Ecological footprint accounting: A multi-scale approach based on net primary productivity

The Ecological footprint accounting is a resource accounting tool that is used to track the sustainability of human systems. In this paper, we present a new approach to calculate the Ecological Footprint metrics at different geographic scales using Net Primary Productivity data. Our study focuses on the town of Afourar, Morocco, as a case study examined at three different scales; national, regional, and provincial scale. In contrast with other studies, our footprint accounting results are expressed in what we have called territorial hectares. The accounting results show that geographic scale has a significant influence on the footprint model, where three cases of sustainability were found. This implies that the efforts to maintain the sustainability of territories are more important at some scales than others. We argue that the relationship between sustainability and geographic scale is both strong and complex and that sustainability is a spatially relative concept. Therefore, we conclude that multi-scale analysis is crucial for making sustainable decisions and management policies.

Defying the Footprint Oracle: Implications of Country Resource Trends

Mainstream competitiveness and international development analyses pay little attention to the significance of a country’s resource security for its economic performance. This paper challenges this neglect, examining the economic implications of countries resource dynamics, particularly for low-income countries. It explores typologies of resource patterns in the context of those countries’ economic prospects. To begin, the paper explains why it uses Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting for its analysis. Data used for the analysis stem from Global Footprint Network’s 2018 edition of its National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. Ranging from 1961 to 2014, these accounts are computed from UN data sets. The accounts track, year by year, how much biologically productive space is occupied by people’s consumption and compare this with how much productive space is available. Both demand and availability are expressed in productivity-adjusted hectares, called global hectares. Using this biophysical accounting perspective, the paper predicts countries’ future socio-economic performance. This analysis is then contrasted with a financial assessment of those countries. The juxtaposition reveals a paradox: Financial assessments seem to contradict assessments based on biophysical trends. The paper offers a way to reconcile this paradox, which also elevates the significance of biophysical country assessments for shaping successful economic policies.

The Ecological Footprint Accounting of Products: When Larger Is Not Worse

One of the main goals of any (sustainability) indicator should be the communication of a clear, unambiguous, and simplified message about the status of the analyzed system. The selected indicator is expected to declare explicitly how its numerical value depicts a situation, for example, positive or negative, sustainable or unsustainable, especially when a comparison among similar or competitive systems is performed. This aspect should be a primary and discriminating issue when the selection of a set of opportune indicators is operated. The Ecological Footprint (EF) has become one of the most popular and widely used sustainability indicators. It is a resource accounting method with an area based metric in which the units of measure are global hectares or hectares with world average bio-productivity. Its main goal is to underline the link between the (un)sustainability level of a product, a system, an activity or a population life style, with the land demand for providing goods, energy, and ecological services needed to sustain that product, system, activity, or population. Therefore, the traditional rationale behind the message of EF is: the larger EF value, the larger environmental impact in terms of resources use, the lower position in the sustainability rank. The aim of this paper was to investigate if this rationale is everywhere opportune and unambiguous, or if sometimes its use requires paying a special attention. Then, a three-dimensional modification of the classical EF framework for the sustainability evaluation of a product has been proposed following a previous work by Niccolucci and co-authors (2009). Finally, the potentialities of the model have been tested by using a case study from the agricultural context.

Ecological Footprint Accounting for Countries: Updates and Results of the National Footprint Accounts, 2012–2018

Ecological Footprint accounting quantifies the supply and demand of Earth’s biocapacity. The National Footprint Accounts (NFA) are the most widely used Ecological Footprint (EF) dataset, and provide results for most countries and the world from 1961 to 2014, based primarily on publicly available UN datasets. Here, we review the evolution of the NFA, describe and quantify the effects of improvements that have been implemented into the accounts since the 2012 edition, and review the latest global trends. Comparing results over six editions of NFAs, we find that time-series trends in world results remain stable, and that the world Ecological Footprint for the latest common year (2008) has increased six percent after four major accounting improvements and more than thirty minor improvements. The latest results from the NFA 2018 Edition for the year 2014 indicate that humanity’s Ecological Footprint is 1.7 Earths, and that global ecological overshoot continues to grow. While improved management practices and increased agricultural yields have assisted in a steady increase of Earth’s biocapacity since 1961, humanity’s Ecological Footprint continues to increase at a faster pace than global biocapacity, particularly in Asia, where the total and per capita Ecological Footprint are increasing faster than all other regions.

Application of Ecological Footprint Accounting as a Part of an Integrated Assessment of Environmental Carrying Capacity: A Case Study of the Footprint of Food of a Large City

The increasing rate of urbanization along with its socio-environmental impact are major global challenges. Therefore, there is a need to assess the boundaries to growth for the future development of cities by the inclusion of the assessment of the environmental carrying capacity (ECC) into spatial management. The purpose is to assess the resource dependence of a given entity. ECC is usually assessed based on indicators such as the ecological footprint (EF) and biocapacity (BC). EF is a measure of the biologically productive areas demanded by human consumption and waste production. Such areas include the space needed for regenerating food and fibers as well as sequestering the generated pollution, particularly CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels. BC reflects the biological regeneration potential of a given area to regenerate resources as well to absorb waste. The city level EF assessment has been applied to urban zones across the world, however, there is a noticeable lack of urban EF assessments in Central Eastern Europe. Therefore, the current research is a first estimate of the EF and BC for the city of Wrocław, Poland. This study estimates the Ecological Footprint of Food (EFF) through both a top-down assessment and a hybrid top-down/bottom-up assessment. Thus, this research verifies also if results from hybrid method could be comparable with top-down approach. The bottom-up component of the hybrid analysis calculated the carbon footprint of food using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The top-down result of Wrocław’s EFF were 1% greater than the hybrid EFF result, 0.974 and 0.963 gha per person respectively. The result indicated that the EFF exceeded the BC of the city of Wrocław 10-fold. Such assessment support efforts to increase resource efficiency and decrease the risk associated with resources—including food security. Therefore, there is a need to verify if a city is able to satisfy the resource needs of its inhabitants while maintaining the natural capital on which they depend intact.

Implications of Land-Grabbing on the Ecological Balance of Brazil

In the global free-market, natural resource scarcity and opportunities for preserving the local environment are fostering international purchasing of large extensions of land, mainly for agricultural use. These land transactions often involve land cover change (i.e., through deforestation) or a shift from extensive or traditional to intensive agricultural practices. In Brazil, the land appropriation by foreign investors (i.e., the so-called “land-grabbing”) is affecting natural capital availability for local communities to a different extent in the very different territorial entities. At the same time, Brazilian investors are purchasing land in other countries. Ecological footprint accounting is one appropriate lens that can be employed to visualize the aggregated effect of natural capital appropriation and use. The aim of this paper is to provide a first estimate on the effect of land-grabbing on the ecological balance of Brazil through calculating the biocapacity embodied in purchased lands in the different states of Brazil. The results show that Brazil is losing between 9 to 9.3 million global hectares (on a gross basis, or a net total of 7.7 to 8.6 million of global hectares) of its biocapacity due to land-grabbing, when considering respectively a “cropland to cropland” (i.e., no land-cover change) and a “total deforestation” scenario. This represents a minimum estimate, highlighting the need for further land-grabbing data collection at the subnational scale. This analysis can be replicated for other countries of the world, adjusting their ecological balance by considering the biocapacity embodied in international transactions of land.