Week 5
The Global Footprint
Network
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Learning Objectives
1. Define the Ecological Footprint.
2. Present the uses, measures and impacts of the
Ecological Footprint.
3. Learn and understand the human impacts on the planet.
4. Define the impacts of consumption regarding the
Ecological Footprint.
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Developing the Footprint
The first academic publication about
the ecological footprint was by
William Rees in 1992.
The ecological footprint concept and
calculation method was developed as
the PhD dissertation of Mathis
Wackernagel, under Rees’
supervision at the University of
British Colombia in Vancouver,
Canada, from 1990-1994.
https://www.footprintnetwork.org/
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World Population 1992 – 2023
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/population
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Current World Population
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
Current World Population at 4:35pm on 5 April 2023:
8,025,830,450
China: 1,4545,740,595
India: 1,418,245,697
About 37.5% of the world population.
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Ecological Footprint
The human demand on the
Earth’s ecosystem is known
as the ecological footprint.
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Ecological Footprint components
Represents the amount of:
biologically productive land
and sea area needed to
regenerate the resources a
human population
consumes, and to absorb
and render harmless the
corresponding waste.
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Purpose of using the Ecological
Footprint
1, Comparing lifestyle to sustainability and thus influence
government policy.
2. Educating people about over-consumption, sustainability
and carrying capacity and therefore altering their behaviour.
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Ecological Footprint Measures
• Amount of biologically productive land and sea area an
individual, a region, all of humanity, or a human activity that
compete for biologically productive space.
• Includes producing renewable resources, accommodating urban
infrastructure and roads, and breaking down or absorbing waste
products, particularly carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel.
• Can be compared to how much land and sea area is available.
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Human Impacts on the Planet
• Limits to nature’s capacity to absorb the impact of human
development.
• Pollution and other pressures led to the deterioration of local
environments.
• We may have reached the limitation of natural regeneration .
• Population growth from 5.49 billion in 1992 to today’s 8 billion in
2023.
• Technological innovations and the use of fossil energy has led to
growing demand for resources.
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Human Impacts on the Planet –
example
• For example, in the early 1900s an industrial method was developed
for fixing nitrogen into ammonia.
https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2019.00041
• The resulting synthetic fertiliser sustains about half of the world’s
population. But, it also causes pollution of air, water and soils.
Human Impacts on the Planet cont.
(1) Excess nutrients end up in the
soil and ground. (2) Some
nutrients become dissolved in
water and leach or leak into
deeper soil layers. Eventually,
they get drained into a water
body, such as a lake or pond. (3)
Some nutrients run off from over
the soils and ground directly into
the water. (4) The extra nutrients
cause algae to bloom.
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Human Impacts on the Planet conti.
(5) Sunlight becomes blocked by the
algae. (6) Photosynthesis and growth of
plants under the water will be
weakened or potentially stopped. (7)
Next, the algae bloom dies and falls to
the bottom of the water body. Then,
bacteria begin to decompose or break
up the remains, and use up oxygen in
the process. (8) The decomposition
process causes the water to have
reduced oxygen, leading to “dead
zones.” Bigger life forms like fish cannot
breathe and die. The water body has
now undergone eutrophication. The
color can be green, red, or brown.
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Human Impacts on the Planet conti.
Examples of Eutrophication. The color
can be green, red, or brown.
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Human Impacts on the Planet –
example Cont..
• Readily available fossil fuels provide energy for domestic use and
industrial production, enabling global trade.
• But only at the cost of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations and
global warming.
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Human Impacts on the Planet –
example Cont..
• Darling River in Menindee around March 2023
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-18/nsw-menindee-mass-fishkill-worst-in-region/102115184
• Similar events took place in 2018 and 2019
• Over-populated with carp
• High temperature and drought
• Low oxygen levels after recent flood waters receded
• Affects local community
• The importance of Murry-Darling rivers – clean fresh water for
waterbird and fish species, tourism, water supply for agricultural
produce (100% of rice, 74% of grapes, 30% of dairy)
https://www.mdba.gov.au/importance-murray-darling-basin
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Human Impact on the Planet
• Human activities and accompanying resource uses have grown so
dramatically, especially since the mid-20th century, that the
environmental conditions that fostered our development and growth
are beginning to deteriorate.
• It is clear that responding to risks at the planetary scale will be vastly
more challenging than anything we have dealt with before.
• An Earth system perspective can help us to perceive complex
relationships between human actions and global impacts that affect
the natural state of the planet.
• It enables us to see how local changes have consequences that play
out at other geographic scales, and to recognise that impacts that
influence one system might affect other systems as well.
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Ecological Footprint: Bio-Capacity
and consumption
• Since the early 1970s, humanity has been demanding more than
our planet can sustainably offer.
• The biocapacity of a particular surface represents its ability to
renew what people demand.
• Biocapacity is therefore the ecosystems’ capacity to produce
biological materials used by people and to absorb waste
material generated by humans, under current management
schemes and extraction technologies.
• The consequences of this “overshoot” are already clear: habitat
and species populations are declining, and carbon in the
atmosphere is accumulating.
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Ecological Footprint: Consumption
• Society has yet to make a rational economic response.
• Reductions occurred in a reactive way to major economic crises
• 1973 oil crisis
• the deep economic recession in the USA in the 1980s. And
many OECD countries during 1980-1982
• 2008-2009 global economic recession.
• Covid19 in 2020
• Potential global economic recession in 2023?
• But, the reductions in total Ecological Footprint were only
temporary and were followed by a rapid climb.
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Summary
1. The Ecological Footprint Represents the amount of biologically
productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the
resources a human population consumes and to absorb and
render harmless the corresponding waste.
2. The Ecological Footprint is useful for comparing lifestyle to
sustainability and educating people about over-consumption,
sustainability and carrying capacity and therefore altering their
behaviour.
3. Human impacts and consumption factors on the planet are
accelerating which drives proactive and change from individuals,
organisations, governments on behalf of all society.
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Subject Overview: Assessments
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Assessment 1 instructions
Complete the ecological footprint calculator.
• http://www.wwf.org.au/get-involved/change-the-way-youlive/ecological-footprint-calculator#gs.PoIsAo0
Answer for yourself; not what you think is socially desirable.
Attach a screen print for Results Part 1 and Part 2 in your
document.
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Assessment 1 Instructions
Present your results with reference to Ecological Footprint Explorer
https://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/
• Reflect on your Results Part 1 (how many planets?)
• Reflect on your Results Part 2 (what are the components?)
From the results :
• Discuss theories related to sustainability and sustainable actions.
• Refer to the possible solutions: City/Energy/Food/Population/Planet
• What are your plans to improve/reduce your footprint?
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Assessment 1 Report Layout
• Introduction (100 words)
• Reflect on findings for Result Part 1 (300 words)
• Reflect on findings for Result Part 2 (300 words)
• Refer to Subject materials and other sources for discussion
and analysis of the implications for yourself and on
organisations.
• Present your plans for improving your footprint. Include
actions to demonstrate innovation and creativity, what are the
impacts of your planned actions on organisations. (1000-1300
words)
• Conclusion (200 words)
• Reference list; APA Referencing formatting is required.
• Appendix: screen prints of the Results Part 1 and Part 2
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Week 6
Global Frameworks, Codes, Agreements and
standards: The UN Global Impact
HAVE A BREAK IN THE NEXT WEEK
AND RETURN REFRESHED!
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