Global Hectares Research Articles

海上空港に関する包括的環境影響評価

Coastal development is supporting improvement of economic activity and convenience for city residents. On the other hand, the development has brought loss of 90% or more of natural beach line and disappearance of the tideland,which has purification function in Tokyo-bay. In the recent years, sustainability is one of the important keywords for the development. In general, the development such as constructing an offshore airport carries both economical advantage and environmental disadvantage. It is generally very difficult to consider their balances and to judge which is important. Inclusive Impact Index (Triple I) is proposed by Marine Environmental Committee in JASNAOE. The index includes environment factor, which is obtained by the method of Ecological Footprint, and economical factor,which is converted to global hectare. We can objectively discuss the social importance of the development by using this index. In this research, we obtained the Triple I (III) of construction of an offshore airport and discussed its social importance from both environment viewpoint and economical viewpoint.

Footprints on the landscape: An environmental appraisal of urban and rural living in the developed world

Environmental or ‘ecological’ footprints have been widely used in recent years as partial indicators of sustainability; specifically of resource consumption and waste absorption transformed on the basis of the biologically productive land area required by a defined population. In the present study, the environmental footprints of the Borough of Swindon and the County of Wiltshire in Southern England have been evaluated and contrasted. Swindon is largely an urban area, whereas the adjacent landscape of Wiltshire is predominantly rural in nature. A mixed compound/component approach to footprint accounting was adopted. The data utilised was based on ‘proxy’ data extracted from national statistics, as well as local data. These calculations show that, on a per capita basis, the footprints of the two neighbouring communities studied are roughly the same: 5.65–5.94 global hectares (gha), with an estimated uncertainty of about ±11%. Consumption and pollutant emission patterns in both rural and urban communities are shown to be unsustainable, and well above the ‘Earthshare’ of 1.80 gha. However, the corresponding overshoot ratios for Swindon and Wiltshire were found to be 10.35:1 and only 2.01:1, respectively. The environmental burdens caused by urban and rural living in developed countries feedback onto each other. Cities and towns require resources from beyond their geographic boundaries, but rural communities also take advantage of the modern infrastructure and services typically provided in an urban setting. The notion of sustainability can only realistically be applied in a broad geophysical context, and consequently the land use planning effort might more appropriately be focussed on a regional scale.

How to Measure a City's Metabolism

Very little of what feeds and builds London comes from the city itself, and even less of the waste stays there. Instead, in order to feed, clothe, power, and build today's major metropolises you need the product of thousands of square kilometers outside the city limits. And you need thousands of square kilometers more to absorb the discards. So far, the largest urban area to have its footprint measured systematically is London. The results appeared in a report titled City Limits, released in 2002. It was found that London's ecological footprint was 49 million global hectares - 293 times its geographical area and equivalent to two United Kingdoms. On a per-person basis, Londoners took up 6.6 global hectares, putting them on a par with the Swiss and making them twice as frugal as the average American, but still more than three times as voracious as what the Earth can provide.

Modification of ecological footprint evaluation method to include non-renewable resource consumption using thermodynamic approach

This study is to modify the ecological footprint methodology by incorporating non-renewable or abiotic resources as an additional category. The use of abiotic resources can be quantified as global hectare by using thermodynamic approaches. A detailed case study on various countries including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Japan, USA, and Vietnam shows the advantage of using the new modified ecological footprint (EF) as an indicator for sustainable development. The modified EF includes not only biotic resources, but also the abiotic resources. The case study indicates that the modified EF differs from the traditional EF up to 123% in the case of Belgium, and 90% in the case of Australia. For developing countries such as Brazil and Vietnam, the differences are relatively smaller (21% for Brazil and 9.4% for Vietnam). The estimated total ecological footprint of the world using the new method implies more serious problems associated with over consumption than using results from the original ecological footprint method.

Applying the ecological footprint to ecotourism scenarios

Academic interest in ecotourism has grown rapidly in recent years, fuelled by the increasing popularity of ecotourism holidays. This paper adopts ecological footprint (EF) analysis as a means of estimating the potential net EF of hypothetical international ecotourism scenarios involving air travel. A procedure for the rapid calculation of indicative, potential minimum net EF estimates using secondary data sources was applied to a variety of source/host country scenarios with the aim of establishing a reasonable and conservative range of EF values associated with ecotourism. The influence of changing assumptions about the broad nature of resource demand at the destination and of three length of stay periods was considered. In total, 252 estimates were made of the potential net per tourist EF, assuming conservative resource use at the destination. For a 14-day holiday, potential net EF estimates ranged between 0.02 and 4.26 global hectares. Only one, a 21-day scenario, produced a net negative EF value, suggesting the potential for an overall reduction in absolute demand on global renewable resources. Some 80% of 14-day holiday scenarios produced potential per tourist EF estimates greater than the annual average per caput EF in low income countries. The size of the transit component was very important to overall net EF estimates, supporting largely anecdotal concerns about the environmental impact of long-haul flights to ecotourism destinations. The implications of these findings for judging the impact of ecotourism were found to vary according to different absolute and relative benchmarks, although the global EF of ecotourism is likely to be considerably less than that of mass tourism.

STATUS OF THE PEAR INDUSTRY IN AFRICA, WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO SOUTH AFRICA

In the context of global production, Africa as a continent is a very small producer of Pyrus communis pears, with roughly 3% of global hectares and production. South Africa produces 56% of Africa’s total crop, followed by Algeria (16%), Tunisia (11%), Egypt (9%) and Morocco (8%). With the exception of very small volumes at high elevations in Kenya and Zimbabwe, production is located around 33-35° north and south of the equator. Since the early 1980’s, plantings in South Africa have increased from approximately 7 000 to 13 000 hectares. The main cultivars are ‘Packham’s Triumph’, ‘Bon Chretien’, ‘Forelle’, ‘Rosemarie’ and ‘Beurre Bosc’. Planting densities have increased from 740 trees per hectare in 1980 to an average of 1 746 trees per hectare in 1995. Roughly 45% of the current orchards are on clonal BP1 and BP3 rootstocks with the remaining, mainly older, orchards on seedling rootstocks. About 38% of the production is packed for export, 44% used for processing (canning and juice) and 18% for local fresh market consumption. Exports have increased from approximately 6 million cartons (12.5 kg) in 1990 to 10 million cartons in 2003. The continental EU accounts for approximately 45% of exports, followed by the United Kingdom (41%), Far East (8%), North America (3%), Middle East (2%) and Africa (1%). The pear industry in South Africa experienced a ‘golden era’ in the early 1990’s, but has since been struggling to maintain profitability, primarily due to exchange rate fluctuations and the overall worldwide market negativity for deciduous fruit. PEAR PRODUCTION IN AFRICA In the context of global production, Africa is a very small producer of European pears (Pyrus communis L.) with roughly 3% of global plantings and production (Table 1). In the period 1998-2002, African hectares under pears increased by 10.7% as opposed to 19.7% globally. Corresponding yield increased by 20.1% and 12.4%, respectively. With the possible exception of table grapes and some low-chill stone fruit that are grown in a number of African countries, albeit not extensively, deciduous fruit production is concentrated in the Mediterranean climates of northern and southern Africa. Within this fruit type, the European pear has a very limited distribution. On the African continent, South Africa is by far the largest producer, with 56% of the total production (averaged over the period 1998-2002). Algeria (16%), Tunisia (11%), Egypt (9%) and Morocco (8%) make up the bulk of the remainder, with Madagascar, Libya, Zimbabwe and Kenya combined at less than 1% of the continent’s production. In the case of Kenya and Zimbabwe, production is limited to areas receiving adequate winter chilling by virtue of elevation.

Ecological footprint time series of Austria, the Philippines, and South Korea for 1961–1999: comparing the conventional approach to an ‘actual land area’ approach

This paper presents methodological advances for calculating Ecological Footprints in time series, and applies them to Austria, the Philippines, and South Korea for the time period from 1961 to 1999. Two different methodological approaches are taken: (1) The latest evolution of the conventional Ecological Footprint method expressed in ‘global hectares’, or normalized hectares with global average bioproductivity; (2) an ‘actual land-use’ approach that calculates the physical area occupied for each country's socio-economic metabolism. The national assessments presented in this paper apply dynamic equivalence and yield factors, which are recalculated for each year. The paper also proposes new methods to deal with grassland yields and discusses problems in defining bioproductive area. The results, reflecting consumption figures, show that the rapid industrialization in South Korea resulted in a steep increase in its Ecological Footprint, whereas Austria's Footprint, which was already large in 1961, grew only slowly throughout the analyzed period. The paper also presents a sectoral Ecological Footprint analysis that compares human demand on forests in the Philippines to its export of forest products. Following a discussion of these challenges, this paper proceeds to showcase time series for Austria, the Philippines, and South Korea both to compare the Footprint analysis results to those of previous methods and to illustrate its analytical capacity.