Footprints for Sustainability: The Next Steps

The concept of an ecological footprint is based on the understanding that every individual human appropriates a share of the productive and assimilative capacity of the biosphere. An ecological footprint corresponds to this exclusive biologically productive area that a defined population uses for all its resource requirements and wastes, and is expressed in terms of bioproductive space, with world-average productivity. Humanity's footprint or its aggregate ecological demand can only temporarily exceed the productive and assimilative capacity of the biosphere without liquidating and weakening the natural capital on which humanity depends fundamentally. Therefore, accounting tools for quantifying humanity's use of nature are essential for overall assessments of human impact as well as for planning specific steps towards a sustainable future.This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the ecological footprint as an ecological accounting method, points out research needs for improvement of the analysis, and suggests potential new applications. The paper identifies ten new applications of the tool to make it applicable at various geographic scales and for a number of analytical and didactic purposes. Then nine methodological improvements are suggested that could refine the currently applied method, making assessments more sensitive to a larger number of ecological impacts. It concludes that many crucial questions pertinent to building a sustainable society can be addressed by current ecological footprint research. By making the method more complete, this tool could evolve from being largely of pedagogical use to become a strategic tool for policy analysis.     

经济发达县域耕地土壤重金属污染评价及其影响因素分析——以江苏省昆山市为例

通过对昆山市14个区镇91个土壤样品中As、Cd、Cr、Cu、Pb、Ni、Hg、Zn 8种重金属测定分析,对该市耕地土壤重金属污染进行评价并进行重金属污染的影响因素分析.结果表明,昆山市耕地土壤存在不同程度的轻微污染,重金属Cd、Cr、Cu、Pb、Hg、Zn均超过国家土壤背景值,旱地、水田中均以Hg污染范围较广、变异系数较大.综合污染指数表现为水田(1.15)＞旱地(1.00).区镇耕地重金属污染评价表明千灯、陆扬、石浦、锦溪、石牌处于警戒值之内,蓬朗、周庄、张浦、正仪、周市、巴城、淀山湖、花桥、陆家轻度污染;昆山市耕地土壤中重金属元素均未超过土壤环境基本容量,能够保证作物品质和农业持续发展.同时,研究表明区域重金属轻微污染具有复合污染的特性,Cd、Pb相关性最高(P=0.621 0), Pb与Hg、Cu、Zn、Cu与Cr也有相关性(0.438 7、0.426 0、0.350 9、0.394 0),区域重金属的轻微污染受人为因素影响显著,研究指出应加强对区域优先控制污染物Hg、次优先控制污染物Pb、Cd、Zn、Cu、Cr的控制与治理.     

长三角地区城市土地利用集约度区域分异研究

土地短缺逐渐成为制约长三角地区经济迅速发展的关键要素。集约利用土地,不断提高城市土地利用效率,是解决长三角地区土地资源稀缺。缓解人地关系矛盾的必然选择。从土地利用强度．产出效率、生态效益、可持续利用程度四方面阐释城市土地利用集约度内涵．以此构建适合长三角地区城市土地利用集约度评价的指标体系,同时运用GIS空间分析方法与技术对评价结果进行空间分异研究。并分析差异产生原因。结果表明：①长三角地区城市土地利用集约度水平差距较大。区位条件和经济发展水平是影响长三角地区城市土地利用集约度的重要因素。②长三角地区城市土地利用集约程度由北向南呈现明显的空间梯度差异特征。在空闾分布上具有微弱的正相关性。空间分异格局明显。③各城市土地集约利用中存在的问题不尽相同,须予以针对性改善提高。     

环渤海临海区域经济发展态势与忧患

环渤海地区作为“十一五”期间国家优化开发的区域。经济发展日益呈现加速化、重工业化的总体趋势。探讨环渤海临海区域经济发展态势与忧患具有重要的现实意义。在对环渤海地区经济发展现状和特征分析的基础上．结合生产力布局向沿海地区推进的态势分析。深入剖析了地区经济发展面临的日益严重的渤海资源和生态环境问题——岸线利用缺乏合理性、区域产业结构布局不平衡、海域污染范围持续扩大等,并进一步提出缓解矛盾的对策建议,希望有助于环渤海地区经济的可持续发展,同时引起国家和地方政府对渤海生态安全的高度重视。     

Infrastructure development through PPPs in India: criteria for sustainability assessment

Public private partnerships (PPPs) allow the Indian Government to leverage private capital for meeting the widening demand-supply gap in the provision of infrastructure services. The private sector, however, prefers to limit the participation to financially attractive projects only, thereby resulting in patterns of infrastructure creation impeding the progress towards sustainable development. In order to promote sustainable development, the PPP procurement process should focus on incentivising the private sector for sustainable infrastructure development rather than concentrating on ensuring financial sustainability only. This paper discusses the principles-based PPP-specific framework that has been developed to facilitate assessment of PPP projects' progress towards sustainable development. The framework development was based on a holistic approach to sustainability assessment and subsequently validated through questionnaire survey with key stakeholders in the Indian PPP programme. This framework will provide the decision makers with appropriate decision aid for integration of sustainable development principles in the PPP procurement process.     

A spatially explicit backcasting approach for sustainable land-use planning

General backcasting as a decision support and planning method starts from desired future states and simulates developments backwards until reaching the present state. Development pathways that reveal steps to be taken to reach a certain future state, and milestones that serve as interim goals, are created during the process. Backcasting has hitherto only been applied in workshops or as a theoretical framework and no spatially explicit backcasting model has previously been established. This paper presents the development of a spatially explicit backcasting model. The proposed model first creates a future scenario utilizing an agent-based model and then simulates backwards. It is implemented using the programming language Python. The model has been applied to a case study for sustainable land-use planning in Salzburg, Austria. The results of the model run show a successful backcasting of land-use classes from a future state back to the present, in 10 year time steps.     

Measuring the linkage between strategies on sustainability and institutional forces: an empirical study of Spanish universities

Policy documents are commonly identified as key outcomes that guide initiatives directed by senior university leaders towards sustainability through plans and policies. Many studies have called for a more integration of sustainability into universities. Nevertheless, the interest in sustainability issues has been more recent in the specific case of Spain. This study analyses the strategic plans developed by Spanish universities in the last decade with two different aims: first, we examine the extent to which Spanish universities are incorporating strategies on sustainability. The second goal evaluates whether the presence of strategies on sustainability in Spanish universities could be associated with coercive and mimetic pressures. Findings indicate the low presence of strategies on sustainability in Spanish universities. Moreover, the results seem to suggest that the presence of strategies on sustainability in Spanish universities could be linked with coercive and mimetic pressures emanating from the State performance funding for universities. The results indicate that universities usually incorporate practices and strategies on sustainability as a response of the pressure exerted by institutional forces, such as the funding systems of higher education institutions.     

Urban sustainability – a segmentation study of Greater Brisbane,Australia

Setting universal goals for sustainability is problematic and may hinder the adoption of sustainable pathways as different sectors of society often have differing opinions on not just what sustainability means for them, but also what is of priority to them. This paper tests a set of psychographic, behavioural, lifestyle and social identities to segment the public on sustainability. We evaluate general knowledge, apply social-choice tools to identify public priorities, and then apply segmentation to reveal broad strata of community profiles around these choices. We discuss our findings in the context of moving beyond knowledge on sustainability and general public choices, to more nuanced messaging and engagement that respects differences in sustainability orientations. We suggest that by focusing on what matters most for different segments of society, there is potential to design effective processes to engage with people and acquire better ownership of sustainability.     

Assessing local planning capacity to promote environmentally sustainable residential development

Smart growth and sustainability planning have, in recent years, become central issues in planning discourse. Scholars have argued that planning capacity at the local government level is critical for smart growth planning, and that planners have a fundamental role to play in advancing local and regional sustainability. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which local planning capacity enables communities to promote more sustainable, smart growth residential development. Based on a 2013 survey of 38 county and 53 municipal governments in the state of Wisconsin, USA, this study finds that the majority of the sample communities have permitted residential developments characterized as transit-oriented, New Urbanist, mixed use, infill developments, or conservation subdivisions as alternatives to low-density, automobile-dependent conventional developments. The study also finds that jurisdictions with higher planning capacities are more likely to overcome significant barriers to more sustainable residential development.     

Robustness of Meteorological Droughts in Dynamically Downscaled Climate Simulations

We examine the robustness of a suite of regional climate models (RCMs) in simulating meteorological droughts and associated metrics in present‐day climate (1971‐2003) over the conterminous United States (U.S.). The RCMs that are part of North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) simulations are compared with multiple observations over the climatologically homogeneous regions of the U.S. The seasonal precipitation, climatology, drought attributes, and trends have been assessed. The reanalysis‐based multi‐model median RCM reasonably simulates observed statistical attributes of drought and the regional detail due to topographic forcing. However, models fail to simulate significant drying trend over the Southwest and West. Further, reanalysis‐based NARCCAP runs underestimate the observed drought frequency overall, with the exception of the Southwest; whereas they underestimate persistence in the drought‐affected areas over the Southwest and West‐North Central regions. However, global climate model‐driven NARCCAP ensembles tend to overestimate regional drought frequencies. Models exhibit considerable uncertainties while reproducing meteorological drought statistics, as evidenced by a general lack of agreement in the Hurst exponent, which in turn controls drought persistence. Water resources managers need to be aware of the limitations of current climate models, while regional climate modelers may want to fine‐tune their parameters to address impact‐relevant metrics.