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.

Our Ecological Footprint presents an internationally-acclaimed tool for measuring and visualizing the resources required to sustain our households, communities, regions and nations, converting the seemingly complex concepts of carrying capacity, resource-use, waste-disposal and the like into a graphic form that everyone can grasp and use. An excellent handbook for community activists, planners, teachers, students and policy makers.

According to many authorities the impact of humanity on the earth is already overshooting the earth’s capacity to supply humanity’s needs. This is an unsustainable position. This book does not focus on the problem but on the solution, by showing what it is like to live within a fair earth share ecological footprint. The authors describe numerical methods used to calculate this, concentrating on low or no cost behaviour change, rather than on potentially expensive technological innovation. They show what people need to do now in regions where their current lifestyle means they are living beyond their ecological means, such as in Europe, North America and Australasia. The calculations focus on outcomes rather than on detailed discussion of the methods used. The main objective is to show that living with a reduced ecological footprint is both possible and not so very different from the way most people currently live in the west. The book clearly demonstrates that change in behaviour now will avoid some very challenging problems in the future. The emphasis is on workable, practical and sustainable solutions based on quantified research, rather than on generalities about overall problems facing humanity.

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.