Relevance for decision making of spatially explicit,participatory scenarios for ecosystem services in an area of a high current demand

Participatory ecosystem services scenarios can be used to inform decision making on the sustainable or wise use of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). To establish the plausibility and coherency of the recently constructed Biscay participatory scenarios, and to analyze policy options for improving sustainability of land use and the supply of ecosystem services, a spatially explicit analysis of land cover change was carried out. The modelling used an innovative methodology which included feedback from key stakeholders. Our study showed that scenario mapping can be a way of testing the credibility and internal consistency of scenarios, and a methodology for making them more coherent; it was also useful for highlighting land use trade-offs. The sustainability analysis for the ES supply side showed the benefits of promoting two land use/cover trends in the Biscay region: (i) an increase of sustainable arable land in the valley zones to reinforce biocapacity and self-provisioning while preserving agroecosystems’ ES flow; and (ii) natural forest regeneration in mountainous and other zones to increase carbon storage and sequestration while enhancing biodiversity and other ES flows. We argue that even if already protected public agro-forest lands may be the best places to start promoting these changes, additional measures are needed to involve private landowners and guarantee changes at a landscape level. Finally, we reflect on the need to make complementary analyses of ES supply and demand as a way of contributing to a broad sustainability agenda.     

How deep is the footprint? A 3D representation

Depletion of natural capital stocks and use of natural capital flows are the central issues in the sustainability debate. Differentiation of these two components, considering natural capital and its limits, is important for planning and management of land use. This paper offers insights into this issue and proposes a new perspective of the Ecological Footprint (EF) in three dimensions, considering not only its size but also its depth: according to this viewpoint the footprint is not an area but a volume, although maintaining the same value as the one in two dimensions. Use of annual flows provided by the Earth is represented by the footprint size, expressed in global hectares (gha) and plotted in the (x,y) plane. Footprint depth represents the demand for extra land to meet human needs through depletion of stocks of natural capital. It is plotted on the z-axis. It can be seen as the number of years necessary to regenerate resources liquidated in 1 year (and to absorb the respective wastes) or as the number of planets necessary to support the inhabitants of the planet Earth. The evolution of these two components in the last five decades is studied and discussed.     

Urban hinterlands—the case of an Israeli town ecological footprint

Modern urban life is characterized by the consumption of materials and energy, which are imported from all over the world and discharge waste that in many cases has a negative impact on ecosystems far from the cities in which they consumed. Indeed, cities cannot survive without worldwide hinterlands for resources and emissions sequestration. The ecological footprint (EF) concept provides valuable insights into the human appropriation of resources relative to earth’s carrying capacity, and therefore it enables us to compare human demands with nature’s supply and provides an indicator of human ecological sustainability. An attempt was made to calculate the EF of Ra’anana, Israel as a case study, to compare the EF-value with the expected for ecological sustainability and to emphasize the dependence on overseas ecosystems. Ra’anana, a town of 67,300 inhabitants in the year 2002, is considered a ‘dormitory town’ with a high quality of life. The EF was calculated using mainly the component method. The calculated EF for Ra’anana is 4.0 ha/resident which means that the required hinterland, located all over the world, is nearly 180 times the size of the town. The town’s EF is twice the value expected for sustainability on a global scale. We draw several scenarios in order to reduce the EF. On a national basis as well as with the town case study, electric energy, food and waste can be reduced and in turn would have a dramatic impact on the EF.

Ecological footprint analysis applied to a sub-national area: the case of the Province of Siena (Italy)

This work is part of a larger project, which aims at investigating the environmental sustainability of the Province of Siena and of its communes, by means of different indicators and methods of analysis. The research presented in this article uses ecological footprint and biocapacity as indicators to monitor the environmental conditions of the area of Siena, thus complementing previous studies carried out using Emergy, greenhouse gases balance and other methods. The calculations have been performed in such a way as to enable a disaggregation of the final results according to the classical categories of ecologically productive land and of consumption, but also according to citizen's and public administration's areas of influence. This information allows us to investigate in detail the socio-economic aspects of environmental resource use. Among the notable results, the Siena territory is characterized by a nearly breakeven total ecological balance, a result contrasting with the national average and most of the other Italian provinces. Furthermore, the analysis has been carried out at different spatial scales (province, districts and communes), highlighting an inhomogeneous territorial structure consisting of subareas in ecological deficit compensated by zones in ecological surplus.     

Synthesis evaluation with entire-array-polygon method to ecological economic system of Funing County in Jiangsu Province

Based on the theory of ecological footprint this paper analyzed the ecological economic system in Funing County in the view of demands of economic system to natural resource and supply of ecosystem for natural resources. It was proposed that the concept of ecological deficit (ecological remainder) per ten thousands yuan GDP be used to evaluate development of ecological economic system. With a synthesis appraisement to the ecological economic system using entire-array-polygon method combined with Ulanowicz development ability and with ecological deficit (ecological remainder) per ten thousands yuan GDP, it provids a theoretical base for reconstructing and managing of demonstration eco-region.