Calculating ecological footprints at the municipal level: what is a reasonable approach for Canada?

No clear ecological footprint calculation strategy is available for small- and mid-sized communities within Canada. By adjusting provincial or national footprint findings using data sets available in the public domain, we develop and test a calculation strategy to estimate municipal ecological footprints. Because the calculation approach is consistent with the Global Footprint Network standardised methodology, it permits meaningful comparisons between communities and with global and national footprint estimates. It offers planners, policy-makers, and community leaders an accessible, straight forward, and cost effective strategy for estimating the ecological footprint at the community and municipal level. The suggested approach is best suited for using the ecological footprint as an awareness and education tool. The large number of limitations associated with calculating the municipal approach and limitations associated with calculating ecological footprints in general at the local level make it an unsuitable tool to inform community planning and policy development.     

Understanding local community attitudes toward industrial development in the Great Barrier Reef region World Heritage Area: are environmental impacts perceived to overshadow economic benefits?

Conflicts between industrial development and environmental conservation can be particularly acute when such development occurs in the vicinity of World Heritage sites. A key example is the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) in northeastern Australia, where a 2012 review by the World Heritage Council found that rapid port development inshore of the coral reef posed significant risks to local marine ecosystems. Such instances pose pressing challenges for decision‐makers seeking to manage World Heritage sites for multiple values and needs, including those of key stakeholder groups, such as local communities. There is increasingly a societal expectation that public decision‐making takes into account local views and priorities, and that companies seek a ‘social license to operate’. This research explored local community attitudes toward port development associated with the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal through the GBRWHA. Using data drawn from a survey and interviews, the research examined how a range of geographical factors, including proximity to gas infrastructure and the perceived impacts and risks of development to the local community, economy and environment shape community perceptions of the industry. Findings suggest that local attitudes toward gas and coal terminal development inshore of the GBRWHA are shaped predominantly by community perceptions of environmental impacts and risks associated with such infrastructure, in contrast to a broader public narrative that focuses largely on economic benefits. A complex combination of other factors, including social impacts, personal environmental values, community trust in industry, and equity in decision‐making and distribution of the risks and benefits of industrial development also contribute. Placed in a broader, global context, the findings have important implications for public decision‐making processes in Australia and elsewhere as they suggest that, for local communities, the perceived impacts of gas development on the environment may overshadow the benefits of industry.     

'People, planet and prosperity': The determinants of humanity's environmental footprint

Environmental or ‘ecological’ footprints have been widely used in recent years as indicators of resource consumption and waste absorption on the basis of biologically productive land area required per capita with prevailing technology. Such footprints represent a partial measure of the extent to which the planet, its regions, or nations are moving along a sustainable development pathway. They vary between countries at different stages of economic development and varying geographic characteristics. The determinants of environmental footprints in some 113 countries from around the world have been evaluated. Dimensional analysis techniques from engineering and the physical sciences are employed to determine the relative significance of population density, economic wealth, and intensity of pollutant emission. Variations about the resulting ‘power‐law’ correlation suggest the extent to which individual nations are currently frugal or profligate in terms of their resource use and environmental impacts. The scatter associated with footprints, or closely related parameters, also indicates the uncertainty inherent within the international datasets needed to compute them, as well as differences in local climate and terrain. Nevertheless, national footprints alert humanity to the necessity of living within the regenerative capacity of the biosphere in order to ensure ‘environmental sustainability’.     

大庆油田湖泊湿地景观生态设计探讨

采用景观生态设计的方法,将大庆油田职工生活居住区内湖泊湿地的湖盆、湖岸、湿地、水体及植物、地貌、土壤等自然因素作为一个整体,对湖底、湖岸、浅水区、湖滨带等地进行了景观生态设计。该设计方案体现了地方性特征,保护与节约了自然资源,显露了自然特色,达到了对环境影响最小、资本投入少、生态效益最大的设计目的。     

An Application of a Modified Ecological Footprint Method and Structural Path Analysis in a Comparative Institutional Study

This paper presents an application of a modified ecological footprint method, using a regional, disturbance-based approach. In contrast to conventional institutional ecological footprint calculations, energy and land use resulting from all upstream production processes are explored by employing an input-output framework. Ecological footprints are calculated for two research institutions: the School of Physics (SoP) at the University of Sydney, and the Sustainable Ecosystems (CSE) Department of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. These are broken down further in terms of land disturbance and greenhouse gas emissions, and as a function of production layer. To enable the use of the results in policy formulation, the ecological footprints are decomposed into detailed contributing paths, which are ranked according to their importance, using structural path analysis. The paper demonstrates that a considerable proportion of impacts occur upstream in industrial production. Thus a significant result of the study is the weight of obscure paths in the total footprints and, therefore, the importance of conducting an holistic assessment in order to ensure all upstream contributions are captured in the final impact of the institution.     

Perceptions of Community Benefits from Two Wild and Scenic Rivers

Wild and Scenic Rivers provide a host of psychological, social, ecological, and economic benefits to local communities. In this study, we use data collected from recreational users of two Wild and Scenic Rivers to examine perceptions of the benefits provided by the rivers to local communities. Our purposes are (1) to determine if similar perceptions of community benefits exist across the two rivers, (2) to determine if individuals’ proximity to the rivers are related to the benefits they perceive, (3) to determine if individuals’ prior recreation experience on the river is related to variations in perceived benefits, (4) to determine if users’ sociodemographic characteristics are related to perceived community benefits, and (5) to determine if the influence of these characteristics on perceived community benefits is similar across the two resource areas. Perceived benefits were found to be analogous across both rivers as individuals consistently ranked ecological/affective benefits as well as tangible benefits similarly. Recreationists living further from the river ranked ecological and affective benefits as significantly less important than those individuals living closer to the river. Women perceived the community benefits produced by the resource areas to be significantly more important when compared to men. Significant relationships were also found between perceived benefits and recreationists’ previous use of the river, their age, and their level of education. With the exception of resource proximity and prior use history, the effects of user characteristics on perceived community benefits were not statistically different across the two rivers. These findings imply similar patterns of perceived community benefits exist across distinct resource areas and that the relationships between user characteristics and perceived benefits are also similar across the study rivers.     

An Application of a Modified Ecological Footprint Method and Structural Path Analysis in a Comparative Institutional Study

This paper presents an application of a modified ecological footprint method, using a regional, disturbance-based approach. In contrast to conventional institutional ecological footprint calculations, energy and land use resulting from all upstream production processes are explored by employing an input-output framework. Ecological footprints are calculated for two research institutions: the School of Physics (SoP) at the University of Sydney, and the Sustainable Ecosystems (CSE) Department of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. These are broken down further in terms of land disturbance and greenhouse gas emissions, and as a function of production layer. To enable the use of the results in policy formulation, the ecological footprints are decomposed into detailed contributing paths, which are ranked according to their importance, using structural path analysis. The paper demonstrates that a considerable proportion of impacts occur upstream in industrial production. Thus a significant result of the study is the weight of obscure paths in the total footprints and, therefore, the importance of conducting an holistic assessment in order to ensure all upstream contributions are captured in the final impact of the institution.     

Towards sustainable community‐based natural resource management in the indigenous Meqmegi community in Taiwan: Rethinking impacts of local participation

This paper examines approaches for local resident participation in community‐based natural resource management (CBNRM); focusing particularly on the potential impacts that local participation imposes on the natural environment. This study used qualitative methods to collect data, and selected Meqmegi, an indigenous community in Taiwan, as a case study. The findings indicate that many opportunities can be created that stimulate a community to participate in natural resource management; moreover, residents are prone to use their own ways to participate. Therefore, although local participation is praised for its people‐oriented way of natural resource management, impacts from the participation process will ultimately be imposed on the environment. We suggest that more consideration be given to the environmental conditions during the process of local participation via CBNRM to make sure that impacts on the environment are positive, and lead to a truly sustainable future.     

The Economic Value of Open Space: A Review and Synthesis

/ Communities increasingly face development pressures that can irreversibly alter open space lands. While the monetary costs and benefits of development are typically known, the corresponding values of natural lands are complex and difficult to measure. This paper reviews different concepts of economic value in relation to open space, describes methods for quantifying these values, and presents examples of each from published literature. Open space benefits accruing to citizens as market values or consumers' surplus include market and enhancement values, production values, natural systems value, use and nonuse values, and various intangible values. Economic impacts that open space lands have on local communities and economies include fiscal impacts on municipal budgets, expenditures from open space-related activities, and impacts from employment and tax revenues. These values are not universally present within a given community, nor are they quantitatively additive. However, a comprehensive consideration of the multiple values of open space will better inform community decisions about land conservation and development. KEY WORDS: Conservation; Economic value; Land use; Open space; Zoning     

Use of embodied energy and ecological footprinting to assess the global environmental impact of consumption in an Irish city-region

The objective of this paper is to compare the carbon emissions produced as a result of product consumption by the residents of an Irish city-region, that is Limerick City and its environs. The resulting carbon footprints are used to compare imports of food items, manufactured products and construction materials with domestic production as well as changes between 1996 and 2002. The total ecological footprints (EF) associated with product consumption are also calculated by aggregating the theoretical land required to sequester carbon emissions and the terrestrial land area appropriated for agricultural production and industrial activity. It is suggested that this approach be used to allocate producer or consumer responsibility for environmental impacts from trade.     

The road to environmental participatory governance in Taiwan: collaboration and challenges in incineration and municipal waste management

Waste management has been a problem for Taiwanese society over the past two decades due to rapid economic growth and urbanisation. The building of incinerators, however, has stimulated controversies and social discontent over the impacts of incineration on both environmental and human health. In Beitou, a district in the capital city of Taiwan, not-in-my-backyard activism was launched against the building of an incinerator, but the community later promoted the idea of a ‘zero-waste city’ and played a role in the decision by Taipei's government. Using in-depth qualitative interview methods to interview local community actors, and green society members to understand the dynamics between actors, this research discusses these changes and employs the participatory governance approach to networks among residents of the local community and other actors. This paper also concludes that there has been a power shift in state–citizen relationships at the local level, deepening and consolidating democratic politics in Taiwan.     

A picture of change: using photovoice to explore social and environmental change in coastal communities on the Andaman Coast of Thailand

Coastal communities experience a wide array of environmental and social changes to which they must constantly adapt. Further, a community's perception of change and risk has significant implications for a community's willingness and ability to adapt to both current and future changes. As part of a larger study focusing on the adaptive capacity of communities on the Andaman Coast of Thailand, we used Photovoice to open a dialogue with communities about changes in the marine environment and in coastal communities. This article presents the results of two exploratory Photovoice processes and discusses prospects for using the Photovoice method for exploring social and environmental change. Changes examined included a number of broader environmental and social trends as well as ecological specifics and social particularities in each site. Participants also explored the social implications of environmental changes, the impacts of macro-scale processes on local outcomes, and emotive and active responses of individuals and communities to change. Photovoice is deemed a powerful method for: examining social, environmental, and socio-ecological change, triangulating to confirm the results of other scientific methods, revealing novel ecological interactions, and providing input into community processes focusing on natural resource management, community development, and climate change adaptation.     

“林光互补”:库布其沙漠治理的探索

从单一的工程措施到复合生态治理是沙漠治理的必然趋势。为探寻沙漠复合生态治理的可行性方案，探究复合生态治理的实践过程和综合效益。通过对库布其沙漠“林光互补”的实践，进行案例研究。发现“林光互补”复合生态治理，以在沙漠地区建设光伏板的方式，将太阳能转换为电能，利用光伏板下降温增湿的优点，发展板下种植，实现经济效益的同时，减少了风沙对发电设备的影响，促进了当地生态的修复。“林光互补”的复合生态治理将经济发展与生态修复互构，促进沙漠地区的良性运行。同时还应考虑生态与人类生活的关系问题，实现沙漠治理的可持续发展。     

Hybrid input-output analysis to evaluate economic impacts of biomass energy

ABSTRACT

The introduction of the new biomass industry exerts influences that change the interactions among economic sectors by drawing the resources for generating electricity, pricing alterations from the existing market and competitively selling electricity to the power grid. These influences should be described and identified to ensure the benefits to the local economy. In this article, we deem to test the potential of hybrid I-O analysis to analyze the economic impacts and address the change in characteristics of the economic impacts of the biomass power plant. The resource utilization data from the existing biomass power plant located in Kochi Prefecture (Japan) is collected and then analyzed by a hybrid input-output (I-O) analysis. We found that (1) the use of cutoff function could determine the new economy’s structure included the biomass power plant where the allocation of resource in the economy is changed according to the consumption and production of the biomass power plant, (2) The power plant increases the total production of Kochi prefecture’s economy, and this benefit overthrows the negative effect of the loss of resource demand of the existing economic sectors. The use of the hybrid I-O to forecast the economic impacts on the local economy could enhance the decision made by the policymaker.     

Different Shades of Green: A Case Study of Support for Wind Farms in the Rural Midwest

Benton County, in north-central Indiana, USA has successfully sited more than 500 turbines. To understand Benton County’s acceptance of wind farms, a holistic case study was conducted that included a document review, a survey of local residents and interviews with key stakeholders. Survey questionnaires were sent to 750 residents asking questions about attitudes toward the wind farms, perceived benefits and impacts from the wind farms, environmental attitudes, and demographic information. Key stakeholders were also interviewed for a deeper understanding of the historical timeline and community acceptance of the wind farm development. While there is limited opposition to the turbines, on the whole the community presents a front of acceptance. Financial, rather than environmental, benefits are the main reason for the acceptance. Although significant in other case studies, transparency and participation do not play a large role in Benton County’s acceptance. Most residents are not concerned with either visual impacts or noise from the wind turbines. More concrete benefits to the community, such as reduced energy bills for county residents, could help to extend acceptance even further within the community. Although there are concerns about the acceptance of wind farms and the impacts of those farms on local residents in both peer-reviewed literature and popular media, we found little evidence of those concerns in Benton County. Instead, we found Benton County to be a community largely accepting of wind farms.     

Results of Community Deliberation About Social Impacts of Ecological Restoration: Comparing Public Input of Self-Selected Versus Actively Engaged Community Members

Participatory processes for obtaining residents' input about community impacts of proposed environmental management actions have long raised concerns about who participates in public involvement efforts and whose interests they represent. This study explored methods of broad-based involvement and the role of deliberation in social impact assessment. Interactive community forums were conducted in 27 communities to solicit public input on proposed alternatives for recovering wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest US. Individuals identified by fellow residents as most active and involved in community affairs ("AE residents") were invited to participate in deliberations about likely social impacts of proposed engineering and ecological actions such as dam removal. Judgments of these AE participants about community impacts were compared with the judgments of residents motivated to attend a forum out of personal interest, who were designated as self-selected ("SS") participants. While the magnitude of impacts rated by SS participants across all communities differed significantly from AE participants' ratings, in-depth analysis of results from two community case studies found that both AE and SS participants identified a large and diverse set of unique impacts, as well as many of the same kinds of impacts. Thus, inclusion of both kinds of residents resulted in a greater range of impacts for consideration in the environmental impact study. The case study results also found that the extent to which similar kinds of impacts are specified by AE and SS group members can differ by type of community. Study results caution against simplistic conclusions drawn from this approach to community-wide public participation. Nonetheless, the results affirm that deliberative methods for community-based impact assessment involving both AE and SS residents can provide a more complete picture of perceived impacts of proposed restoration activities.     

太原市2010年生态足迹计算与分析

利用生态足迹的计算模型和分析方法,对山西省太原市2010年的生态足迹和生态承载力进行了研究和分析.结果表明,太原市人均生态足迹需求为6.0139hm2,人均生态承载力为0.394hm2,出现了5.619hm2的人均生态赤字,表明太原市面临的生态压力较大.在此基础上,提出了缓减太原市生态压力的若干建议.     

Capacity building for sustainability: towards community development in coastal Scotland

Capacity building is widely recognised as a central feature of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). Yet, although increased community capacity can potentially empower local communities with the ability to tackle the impacts of socio-economic change, an evaluation of ICZM performance reveals a limited interest in advancing community development initiatives. This weakness is particularly apparent in Scotland. Whilst coastal communities in Scotland have been found to suffer from a range of significant socio-economic problems, Scottish approaches to ICZM have failed to improve local development trajectories. In response, this paper considers the degree to which community based partnerships can assist in the delivery of sustainable development benefits.     

Using a social learning configuration to increase Vietnamese smallholder farmers’ adaptive capacity to respond to climate change

Social learning is crucial for local smallholder farmers in developing countries to improve their adaptive capacity and to adapt to the current and projected impacts of climate change. While it is widely acknowledged that social learning is a necessary condition for adaptation, few studies have systematically investigated under which conditions particular forms of social learning are most successful in improving adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable groups. This study aims to design, implement and evaluate a social learning configuration in a coastal community in Vietnam. We make use of various methods during four workshop-based interventions with local smallholder farmers: interviews with key farmers and commune leaders, farmer-to-farmer learning, participatory observations and focus group discussions. The methods for evaluation of social learning configuration include in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and structured survey interviews. Our findings show that the social learning configuration used in this study leads to an increased problem ownership, an enhanced knowledge-base with regard to climate change impacts and production adaptation options, improved ability to see connections and interdependencies and finally, strengthened relationships and social cohesion. The results suggest that increased social learning in the community leads to increase in adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers and improves both their economic and environmental sustainability. We discuss the key lessons for designing learning configurations that can successfully enhance adaptive capacity and smallholder farmers’ agency and responsiveness to the challenges posed by climate change impacts.     

Using secondary data to analyse socio-economic impacts of water management actions

This paper provides an analysis of the socio-economic impacts of river restoration schemes, and is novel in considering how a wide range of socio-economic variables can be used to understand impacts on the entire resident population within an area. A control-impacted approach was applied to explore differences in socio-economic characteristics of areas within which a restoration scheme had been carried out compared to areas without such a scheme. The results show that significant differences exist between control and impacted areas for a range of socio-economic variables. However, due to constraints in the methods and the data available, there are currently limitations in the extent to which socio-economic impacts of river restoration schemes can be fully explored. Additional datasets that become available in the future may increase the ability to detect associations between improvements in the water environment and socio-economic benefits. However, whilst the secondary data used in this paper are potentially powerful, they should be used alongside other techniques for assessing the impacts of decisions as part of future frameworks to deliver sustainable water management.