The Ecological Footprint: an Indicator of Progress Toward Regional Sustainability

We define regional sustainability as the continuous support of human quality of life within a region's ecological carrying capacity. To achieve regional sustainability, one must first assess the current situation. That is, indicators of status and progress are required. The ecological footprint is an area-based indicator which quantifies the intensity of human resource use and waste discharge activity in relation to a region's ecological carrying capacity. If the ecological footprint of a human population is greater than the area which it occupies, the population must be doing at least one of the following: receiving resources from elsewhere, disposing of some of its waste outside of the area, or depleting the area's natural capital stocks. To achieve global sustainability, the sum of all regional footprints must not exceed the total area of the biosphere. This paper explains the mechanics of a footprint calculation method for nations and regions. As the method is standardized, the relative ecological load imposed by nations and regions can be compared. Further, a nation's or region's consumption can be contrasted with its local ecological production, providing an indicator of potential vulnerability and contribution to ecological decline.     

Towards a more holistic sustainability assessment framework for agro-bioenergy systems — A review

The use of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a sustainability assessment tool for agro-bioenergy system usually has an industrial agriculture bias. Furthermore, LCA generally has often been criticized for being a decision maker tool which may not consider decision takers perceptions. They are lacking in spatial and temporal depth, and unable to assess sufficiently some environmental impact categories such as biodiversity, land use etc. and most economic and social impact categories, e.g. food security, water security, energy security. This study explored tools, methodologies and frameworks that can be deployed individually, as well as in combination with each other for bridging these methodological gaps in application to agro-bioenergy systems. Integrating agronomic options, e.g. alternative farm power, tillage, seed sowing options, fertilizer, pesticide, irrigation into the boundaries of LCAs for agro-bioenergy systems will not only provide an alternative agro-ecological perspective to previous LCAs, but will also lead to the derivation of indicators for assessment of some social and economic impact categories. Deploying life cycle thinking approaches such as energy return on energy invested-EROEI, human appropriation of net primary production-HANPP, net greenhouse gas or carbon balance-NCB, water footprint individually and in combination with each other will also lead to further derivation of indicators suitable for assessing relevant environmental, social and economic impact categories. Also, applying spatio-temporal simulation models has a potential for improving the spatial and temporal depths of LCA analysis.     

Effect of national-level spatial distribution of cities on national transport CO2 emissions

Most research regarding the relationship between cities and transportation carbon emission is focused on intra-city travel, and it has been found that compact patterns tend to emit less carbon. Yet, little is known about the impact of national-level spatial distribution of cities and inter-city transportation on transportation CO₂ emissions. Further, most studies regarding the impact of urbanization on CO₂ emission directly examine the relationship between urbanization rate and CO₂ emission with little consideration of the national spatial pattern of urbanization. This study hypothesizes that the national-level spatial distribution of cities – in a dispersed or polarized pattern – affects national transport CO₂ emissions due to the varying intensity of inter-city transportation. This study uses the Gridded Population of the World v3 and v4 from Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) of NASA to examine the national-level spatial distribution of urban agglomerations. It applies the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model. The analysis shows that, among 60–90% of urbanized countries, spatially dispersed urbanized countries (e.g., countries with many medium-sized cities scattered over the territory) show a lower national transportation CO₂ emission than spatially polarized urbanized countries (e.g., there are only a few large cities). The urban system elasticity of transportation CO₂ emissions is 0.4 or 0.6. That is, if the degree of polarization decreases by 1%, national transportation CO₂ emissions decrease by approximately 0.4–0.6%. This effect is similar to the effect of GDP per capita of around 0.5%. Because it is particularly difficult to disperse people and economic activities across a country once spatial polarization is set, this study's findings have the most significant implications for urbanizing countries. If urbanizing countries adopt national urban policy and territorial plans to form dispersed cities, it could reduce transportation carbon emissions and promote sustainable development. For already urbanized countries, national urban policy development is recommended to promote spatially dispersed rather than polarized national urban systems.     

A decision-support system for sustainable urban metabolism in Europe

Urban metabolism components define the energy and material exchanges within a city and, therefore, can provide valuable information on the environmental quality of urban areas. Assessing the potential impact of urban planning alternatives on urban metabolism components (such as energy, water, carbon and pollutants fluxes) can provide a quantitative estimation of their sustainability performance. Urban metabolism impact assessment can, therefore, contribute to the identification of sustainable urban structures with regards, for example, to building types, materials and layout, as well as to location and capacity of transportation and infrastructural developments. In this way, it enables the formulation of planning and policy recommendations to promote efficient use of resources and enhance environmental quality in urban areas.The European FP7 project BRIDGE (sustainaBle uRban plannIng Decision support accountinG for urban mEtabolism) has developed a decision-support system (DSS) that systematically integrates urban metabolism components into impact assessment processes with the aim of accurately quantifying the potential effects of proposed planning interventions. The DSS enables integration of multiple spatial and non-spatial datasets (e.g. physical flows of energy and material with variables of social and economic change) in a systematic manner to obtain spatially defined assessment results and to thus inform planners and decision-makers. This multi-criteria approach also enables incorporation of stakeholders' perceptions in order to prioritise decisive assessment criteria. This paper describes the methodological framework used to develop the DSS and critically examines the results of its practical application in five European cities.     

Ecological footprint accounting: A multi-scale approach based on net primary productivity

The Ecological footprint accounting is a resource accounting tool that is used to track the sustainability of human systems. In this paper, we present a new approach to calculate the Ecological Footprint metrics at different geographic scales using Net Primary Productivity data. Our study focuses on the town of Afourar, Morocco, as a case study examined at three different scales; national, regional, and provincial scale. In contrast with other studies, our footprint accounting results are expressed in what we have called territorial hectares. The accounting results show that geographic scale has a significant influence on the footprint model, where three cases of sustainability were found. This implies that the efforts to maintain the sustainability of territories are more important at some scales than others. We argue that the relationship between sustainability and geographic scale is both strong and complex and that sustainability is a spatially relative concept. Therefore, we conclude that multi-scale analysis is crucial for making sustainable decisions and management policies.     

An environmental impact assessment of economic complexity and energy consumption: Does institutional quality make a difference?

The relationship between ecological footprint and economic complexity has important policy implications for environmental sustainability. Furthermore, institutional quality can be an imperative tool to ensure environmental sustainability, and it may also moderate the nexus between economic complexity and ecological footprint. Therefore, this study investigates the linkage between economic complexity, institutional quality, disaggregated energy consumption, and economic growth on environmental degradation in emerging countries from 1984 to 2017. In addition, it also probes the moderating effect of institutional quality in the nexus between economic complexity and footprint. To do so, the study applies an advanced econometric approach, cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) estimator, for short-run and long-run estimation, that allows heterogeneity in the slope parameters and dependencies across countries. The analytical outcomes demonstrate that economic complexity increases environmental degradation by exacerbating ecological footprint, while a high level of economic complexity mitigates ecological footprint. The findings of the study unfold that institutional quality supports environmental sustainability by reducing the ecological footprint. The outcomes also indicated that institutional quality promotes environmental sustainability by moderating the nexus between economic complexity and ecological degradation. Moreover, renewable energy is found to decrease ecological footprint, whereas non-renewable energy use leads to intensifying the ecological footprint. It was also found that there is an inverted u-shaped association between ecological footprint and economic growth. Based on the results, the study suggests that emerging countries should accelerate economic complexity along with a stronger institutional framework to combat environmental issues without compromising sustainable economic growth.     

The design of long-term air quality monitoring networks in urban areas using a spatiotemporal approach

The implementation and maintenance of an air pollution monitoring program can be expensive and time consuming, especially when the aim is for long-term monitoring over a significant area. Consequently, it is essential that sites are optimized to provide the best representative cover while minimizing costs. In the past, there has been a tendency to locate sampling stations at pollution hot-spots. While this is acceptable for determining a maximum potential exposure or identifying the extent of a risk, there are limitations to this approach when assessing the potential impact of any future abatement strategies or determining the level of exposure outside the vicinity. This paper presents an approach in which representative air quality assessments can be undertaken for an urban area using the minimum number of measurement sites. A novel methodology is described that involves site selection to capture the maximum variance in measured pollutants, while minimizing spatiotemporal autocorrelation between the selected sites. A case study is presented for Yazd, Iran. Overall, the results show that the proposed methodology can be effective and enable the long-term monitoring of air pollution to be undertaken on a cost-effective basis in urban areas. In addition, there is the potential for the methodology to be utilized for other forms of pollution (e.g., water, soil, and noise).     

Scenario Analysis for the San Pedro River, Analyzing Hydrological Consequences of a Future Environment

Studies of future management and policy options based on different assumptions provide a mechanism to examine possible outcomes and especially their likely benefits and consequences. The San Pedro River in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico is an area that has undergone rapid changes in land use and cover, and subsequently is facing keen environmental crises related to water resources. It is the location of a number of studies that have dealt with change analysis, watershed condition, and most recently, alternative futures analysis. The previous work has dealt primarily with resources of habitat, visual quality, and groundwater related to urban development patterns and preferences. In the present study, previously defined future scenarios, in the form of land-use/land-cover grids, were examined relative to their impact on surface-water conditions (e.g., surface runoff and sediment yield). These hydrological outputs were estimated for the baseline year of 2000 and predicted twenty years in the future as a demonstration of how new geographic information system-based hydrologic modeling tools can be used to evaluate the spatial impacts of urban growth patterns on surface-water hydrology.     

Assessment of urban sustainability efficiency based on general data envelopment analysis: a case study of two cities in western and eastern China

Sustainable urban development focuses on enhancing urban well-being, while also balancing the demands of urban social and economic development, natural resource consumption, and environmental pollution. This work used general data envelopment analysis to assess the urban sustainability efficiency (USE) and sustainability potential (SP) in Lanzhou and Xiamen, two cities that are characteristic of urban areas in western and eastern China. The assessment indicator system included important natural and urban welfare factors as input and output indices, respectively. The results showed that overall urban sustainability efficiency increased in Lanzhou and Xiamen from 1985 to 2010, but that the sustainability of natural resources clearly decreased. The urban sustainability efficiency of Xiamen was higher than that of Lanzhou, and the sustainability potential of Xiamen was lower than that of Lanzhou; this indicates that Xiamen performed better in terms of urban sustainable development. The urban sustainability efficiency in Xiamen has increased with increasing urban population, and the rate and scale of economic development have been higher than in Lanzhou. The assessment and analysis performed in this study show that cities with different natural resources and development characteristics have different forms, patterns, and trajectories of sustainable development.     

The Development of Biological Objectives for Streams in a Single Catchment: A Case Study on the Catchment of Western Port Bay, Victoria, Australia

Government environment protection policies for waterways have traditionally relied on water quality indicators and their objectives. In this paper we describe the development of biological objectives based on invertebrate indicators for inclusion in a government policy for the catchment of Western Port Bay, Victoria. The first step of defining segments (areas with streams in which the same objectives are applied) was problematic, requiring two different approaches, as follows. Site groups initially based on invertebrate community composition derived using multivariate techniques (ordination and classification) proved to be unsuitable for policy segments. Segment boundaries were subsequently defined using topographical (e.g. boundary of foothills and lowland plains), climate (e.g. rainfall) and land-use (e.g. urban) features. We used information and data from reference sites inside as well outside the catchment to derive specific biological objectives based on aquatic invertebrates for these segments. Objectives were specified for the following four indicators--number of invertebrate families, the SIGNAL index, the AUSRIVAS predictive model and the number of key families.     

Sustainability principles in strategic environmental assessment: A framework for analysis and examples from Italian urban planning

This paper presents a framework for analysing the degree of consideration of sustainability principles in Strategic environmental assessment (SEA), and demonstrates its application to a sample of SEA of Italian urban plans. The framework is based on Gibson's (2006) sustainability principles, which are linked to a number of guidance criteria and eventually to review questions, resulting from an extensive literature review. A total of 71 questions are included in the framework, which gives particular emphasis to key concepts, such as intragenerational and intergenerational equity. The framework was applied to review the Environmental Report of the urban plans of 15 major Italian cities. The results of this review show that, even if sustainability is commonly considered as a pivotal concept, there is still work to be done in order to effectively integrate sustainability principles into SEA. In particular, most of the attention is given to mitigation and compensation measures, rather than to actual attempts to propose more sustainable planning decisions in the first place. Concerning the proposed framework of analysis, further research is required to clarify equity concerns and particularly to identify suitable indicators for operationalizing the concepts of intra/inter-generational equity in decision-making.     

Transitions-based strategic environmental assessment

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is emerging as an important tool for sustainability transitions, yet there has been limited research conceptualizing transitions-based SEA. If SEA's primary goal is to facilitate strategic change and guide decision-processes toward sustainability, an assessment framework that accounts for the multi-dimensional factors and relationships influencing transition processes seems highly relevant. This paper advances the transitions-based SEA design – an approach to SEA that is focused on the institutional environment and policy context for the development of strategic initiatives including institutional commitments, supporting policies, and opportunities. We do so within the context of energy transitions, bridging strategic planning theories, decision making, and transition management. Building on existing SEA frameworks that advance strategic thinking, the paper presents the foundational principles and strategic questions to be asked in a transitions-based SEA design. The framework was developed based on a review of sustainability transitions and SEA literature supplemented by expert input. The SEA design focuses on the guiding vision for transitions, the institutional context and governance arrangements, opportunities and risks of proposed sustainability pathways, progress indicators for on-going transition management, and impacts of the exogenous landscape. The framework defines a new functionality for SEA, pushing the boundaries of what SEA can achieve, and should accomplish, as a strategic assessment tool while also challenging conventional thinking and practice beyond its application to policies, plans and programs.     

A more comprehensive and quantitative approach to corporate sustainability

This study proposes a new quantitative methodology and extendable framework to assess corporate sustainability more comprehensively and to capture interrelationships across the multiple domains of sustainability. A case study from the mining industry is presented to demonstrate the application of this new approach and its ability to extract meaningful insights regarding the company's progress towards sustainability. The comprehensive sustainability target method (CSTM) is a novel extension to an existing environmental burden sustainability assessment technique with additional focus on impacts within and across the societal and social justice domain. CSTM extends sustainability assessment recognizing planetary limits from human activity and relevant societal and community-based targets by formalizing assessment to include social and environmental beneficial impacts, as well as the interdependencies between the economic, environmental and societal domains. Outcomes from the mining industry case study reveal new insights into the sustainability of corporate operations as the comprehensive assessment framework provides a deeper and more extensive evaluation as compared to traditional sustainability assessments and corporate disclosures. In addition to maximal earth carrying capacity estimates for environmental burden targets, this study proposes that companies should assess sustainability for minimal limits applying to social beneficial impacts and maximal limits for social burden impacts. The overall theoretical construct and framework are presented to illustrate the robustness and extendibility of the technique to broadly incorporate various sustainability domains, assessment boundaries, and temporal considerations.     

Landscape resistance to dispersal: simulating long-term effects of human disturbance on a small and isolated wolf population in southwestern Manitoba, Canada

Landscape fragmentation affects wildlife population viability, in part, through the effects it has on individual dispersal. In addition, some forms of human disturbance impinge on dispersal without physically fragmenting habitats. Here, we use the term "landscape resistance" to capture constraints to dispersal that cannot be linked directly to fragmentation. The extent to which landscape resistance can influence population persistence is not well understood. Agricultural development over the past 60?years has resulted in considerable habitat fragmentation in the Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP) region in southwestern Manitoba, Canada. We examined how park boundaries, roads outside park boundaries and negative human attitudes have altered dispersal success and population persistence. We examined whether stochastic disturbance, representing infectious disease epidemics, further reduced long-term population persistence for various scenarios. Finally, we assessed whether the simultaneous occurrence of the three features had additive effects. We simulated dispersal using HexSim, a spatially explicit individual-based population model, parameterised with data on wolves (Canis lupus) in the RMNP region. Simulations that separately accounted for negative human attitudes and roads outside the park boundaries exhibited lower mean population size than those that ignored these details. Increasing deflection from park boundaries did not appear to have significant impacts. Our results did not indicate the presence of additive effects, and scenarios incorporating all three features had similar results as that of roads. Stochastic disturbance further reduced mean population size. Our results do illustrate how less-visible human disturbances (i.e. those that do not clearly alter landscape characteristics) can significantly limit dispersal and population persistence.     

Towards sustainable settlement growth: A new multi-criteria assessment for implementing environmental targets into strategic urban planning

For nearly one decade, the German political and research-agenda has been to a large extent determined by the ongoing question of how to limit the expansion of settlement areas around cities in order to preserve natural resources, make settlement growth more sustainable and to strengthen the re-use of existing inner-urban areas (see a.o. Kötter et al. 2009a, 2010; Schetke et al. 2009, 2010b). What is already under discussion within the international literature are the recommendations of the German Council for Sustainability to quantitatively reduce the daily greenfield consumption from the current rate of over 100 ha per day to a rate of 30 ha per day in 2020 and to bring urban infill development up to a ratio of 3:1 with greenfield development (German Council for Sustainability, 2004).). This paper addresses the added value beyond those abstract political targets and presents an innovative, multi-criteria assessment (MCA) of greenfield and infill sites to evaluate their sustainability and resource efficiency. MCA development and its incorporation into a Decision Support System (DSS) were accomplished by utilising a stakeholder-driven approach. The resulting tool can be applied in preparing and revising land-use plans. The paper presents the concept and the development process of the MCA-DSS. Test runs with planners prove that the evaluation of potential housing sites using individually weighted environmental indicators helps to identify those strategies of housing development that accord most closely with sustainability goals. The tests further show that the development of greenfield sites generally exhibits less sustainability than that of infill sites.     

A Novel Formulation for Designing a Monitoring Strategy: Application to the Design of a River Quality Monitoring System

In this work, we propose a technique to automatically optimize the monitoring of any distributed indicator (concentration of a substance along a river, blood pressure of a patient over time, etc.) for which a reliable estimate is previously available. From a mathematical point of view, the problem is based on obtaining a reliable estimate of the chosen indicator (e.g., by numerical simulation), and then solving a multi-objective optimization problem (with mixed real and integer variables) whose solution must provide an efficient and satisfactory monitoring strategy. As an illustrative case, we show the steps to follow in order to implement that strategy when designing a system for monitoring water quality in a river. Finally, we present and analyze the results when applying the proposed technique to study a real case in the Neuse River (North Carolina, USA).     

Identification of air pollutant sampling period using horizontal dilution potential

A new model is proposed for estimating horizontal dilution potential of an area using wind data. The mean wind speed and wind direction variation are used as a measure of linear and angular spread of pollutant in the atmosphere. The methodology is applied to monitored hourly wind data for each month of 1 year for wind data collected at Vadodara, Gujarat and monthly dilution potential is estimated. It is found that there is a gradual variation of horizontal dilution potential over a year with limited dilution during post monsoon period i.e., October and November and a high dilution in pre monsoon period i.e., May and June. This information can be used to design air quality sampling network and duration of sampling for source apportionment study. Air pollutant sampling during high dilution period can be carried out for identifying urban and rural dust and wind blown dust from mining activity. Air pollutant sampling during low dilution period can be carried out for capturing large amount of particulate matter from anthropogenic sources like elevated stack of furnace.