Ecological footprint
Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The ecological footprint is the area of productive land and water needed to supply what a population consumes and to absorb its waste. It is measured in global hectares, a standard unit of average productive area. It is compared with biocapacity, which is the area actually available. The Global Footprint Network does this comparison. If the footprint is larger than biocapacity, the population is using nature faster than it regenerates.
Example
Take a city whose people eat grain, use timber and burn fuel. Its footprint adds up the cropland, forest and fishing grounds needed for these resources. It also adds the forest area needed to absorb its carbon. That total can be many times the city's own area.
Don't confuse with
- Carbon footprint: this counts only greenhouse gas emissions, in tonnes of CO2e. The ecological footprint covers all resource use and waste, measured as area.
- Water footprint: this counts only the freshwater used, in volume.
Related concepts
- Natural capital
- Ecosystem services
- Total economic value
- Contingent valuation
- Hedonic pricing
- Payment for ecosystem services
- Green accounting
- Adjusted net savings
- Earth Overshoot Day
- Carbon footprint