Assessment Of Ecological Footprints

This book highlights the concepts and assessment methods of Ecological Footprints. Ecological footprint is defined as, ”a measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and resource management practices”. Developed in 1992 by William Rees, it was the first footprint developed followed by other footprints such as Carbon, Water and Energy. Assessment of Ecological footprints strive for comparing consumption footprint to biological capacity. This book presents five interesting chapters pertaining to the assessment of Ecological Footprints.

This book highlights the concepts and assessment methods of Ecological Footprints. Ecological footprint is defined as, "a measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and resource management practices". Developed in 1992 by William Rees, it was the first footprint developed followed by other footprints such as Carbon, Water and Energy. Assessment of Ecological footprints strive for comparing consumption footprint to biological capacity. This book presents five interesting chapters pertaining to the assessment of Ecological Footprints.

Ecological footprinting is rapidly being adopted as an effective and practical way to measure our impact on the environment - in both large- and small-scale planning and development. This is an introduction to ecological footprint analysis, showing how it can be done, and how to measure the footprints of activities, lifestyles, organizations and regions. Case studies illustrate its effectiveness at national, organizational, individual and product levels.

This book focuses on environmental footprints that have attracted considerable interest and discussion within academia, policy makers and the public as a tool to assess anthropogenic effects on the environment. It begins with an overview which provides a starting point for understanding the concept of environmental footprints. On the basis of a thorough investigation into the theoretical and methodological aspects of selected environmental footprints that have been widely adopted, a unified framework for structuring, categorizing and integrating various footprint indicators is established. Furthermore, the book brings clarity to the relationship between footprint analysis and life cycle assessment, and challenges the isolation of environmental footprints and planetary boundaries. The findings provide novel insights into the development of environmental footprints for environmental impact assessment and environmental sustainability assessment.

This book discusses the concepts, methods and case studies pertaining to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based Carbon Footprint Assessment. It covers chapters on Carbon Footprint Assessment with LCA methodology & case studies on carbon footprint calculation following the LCA approach on power plants in India, Impacts of Vehicle Incidents On CO2 Emissions and school buildings in India.

This book highlights the concept of water footprint in different industrial sectors such as leather tanning, steel, agriculture, textile and wine. One of the very basic necessities of life which is soon going to be scarce is water, hence the environmental footprint assessments on any scale essentially includes water footprint which is being measured in various supply chains and across different product categories. According to ISO 14046, the water footprint assessment refers to the total freshwater volume consumed and polluted directly or indirectly across a product’s end-to-end supply chain. This book presents, for industry purposes, the focus on identification and quantification of water trade, the scarcity, and pollution involved in the production of goods and services.

Emissions and resources are typically allocated to national territories. There has been increased interest in allocating environmental flows to the final consumption of goods and services. The resulting "environment footprints" are particularly relevant for global environmental problems in a globalised world. Developed countries generally have larger environmental footprints than their national territorial flows, and the gap has tended to increase over the last two decades. Consequently, some have argued that environmental policies should address the environmental footprint. Despite the potential policy relevance, there has been relatively little research on policy applications. While environmental footprints have many advantages, policy applications are limited by estimation and interpretation uncertainty, and by the lack of a clear policy motivation.

People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but significantly more for producing things such as food, paper and cotton clothes. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. Indirect use refers to the 'virtual water' embedded in tradable goods and commodities, such as cereals, sugar or cotton. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. This book offers a complete and up-to-date overview of the global standard on water footprint assessment as developed by the Water Footprint Network. More specifically it: o Provides a comprehensive set of methods for water footprint assessment o Shows how water footprints can be calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses o Contains detailed worked examples of how to calculate green, blue and grey water footprints o Describes how to assess the sustainability of the aggregated water footprint within a river basin or the water footprint of a specific product o Includes an extensive library of possible measures that can contribute to water footprint reduction