Ecological footprint and planning

Iván Samaniego Piquero

Spatial Planning SS 2012

Kurt Fedra

02-05 The ecological footprint

What is it?

How is it calculated?

Ecological deficit

Do we fit in the planet?

06-08 Spatial Planning

Size is not important

High density vs. less urban sprawl

Conclusions

09 Bibliography

Index

01

Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth´s ecosystems (and their

“servicies”). It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted

with the planet´s ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically

productive land and sea area necessary to supply the resources a human population consu-

mes, and to assimilate associated waste.

Every human needs resources like electricity, water, food, transportation, homes, etc. This

means that every human activity needs a amount of land in the Earth to take place, our planet

can support a limited number of those activities due to there is a limited amount of land and

sea. If humankind consumes and generates more than the Earth can support, we need more

than an Earth to hold the balance. This is happened.

The calculation methodology is to account for the consumption of different categories and

transform it into the appropriate biological surface production through productivity indexes.

These categories are:

Cropland: to produce the vegetables that we consume.

Pasture: surface for livestock.

Forests: exploitation of wood and paper.

Productive ocean: surface of water for fishing

Built area: urbanized surface and infrastructures

Area of CO² absorption: surface of forest necessary for absorption of CO² emissions due to the

consumption of fossil fuels for energy production. Are recorded in the production of consump-

tion goods, expenditure on housing and transportation, etc.

What is it?

How is it calculated?

“Every human activity consumes resources from the

planet and produces waste that the planet must then

deal with.”

02

The ecological deficit is the difference between the available area (carrying capacity) and the

area consumed (ecological footprint) at a given location. Show up the exploitation of natural

capital and the inability to regenerate both globally and locally.

Carrying capacity is the local capacity available, taking into account the productivity of land

and a 12% reserve for conservation of biodiversity. Presupposes the exploitation to which land

may be subjected without permanently damaging their productivity. Then we estimate the

planet’s carrying capacity taking into account that there are 11,300 millions of hectares of pro-

ductive land and sea space, and the approximative world’s population of 6,500 million people.

Dealing between each human being we touch:

0,25 Ha of cropland.

0,6 Ha of pasture.

0,6 Ha of forest.

0,5 Ha of productive ocean.

0,03 Ha of built area.

The result would be 2.00 ha / inhabitant and year, minus 12% of biodiversity is a 1.75 ha /

inhabitant.

The average overall footprint was 2.8 Ha / inhabitan in 2007, which puts 2/3 above the carrying

capacity.

0,8 Ha of cropland.

1,5 Ha of pasture.

0,5 Ha of forest.

0,2 Ha of productive ocean.

0,1 Ha built area.

1,7 Ha of CO² absorption.

Ecological deficit

Earth carrying capacity

03

Image 01

The previous data means that the global burden to submit to the planet was in 2007 35% abo-

ve what nature can give. We consume more than the Earth can regenerates.

Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb

our waste. This reveals that the Earth needs one year and six months to regenerate what we

use in a year.

Moderate UN scenarios suggest that if current population and consumption trends continue,

by the 2030s, we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us. And of course, we only

have one.

Turning resources into waste faster than waste can be turned back into resources puts us in

global ecological overshoot, depleting the very resources on which human life and biodiversity

depend.

The result is collapsing fisheries, diminishing forest cover, depletion of fresh water systems,

and the build up of carbon dioxide emissions, which creates problems like global climate chan-

ge. These are just a few of the most noticeable effects of overshoot.

Overshoot also contributes to resource conflicts and wars, mass migrations, famine, disease

and other human tragedies—and tends to have a disproportionate impact on the poor, who

cannot buy their way out of the problem by getting resources from somewhere else.

Do we fit in the planet?

04

Image 02

The population of the Planet is near 7.000 millions of people, our level of infrastructures deve-

lopment is very high, the urban surfaces keeps growing more and more and our consumption

of the planet resources like fossil fuels is excessive. As already says above (image 2) in a few

years we will need the surface of three Earths to support us. This is a huge enviromental pro-

blem and there are ways to get a global footprint below the earth carrying capacity. One of

them is spatial planning which aims is to desig urban growing, routes of infrastructures, find

the appropriate locations for housing, industry, cropland, etc, for consuming as few as possible

natural resources.

For this purpose are going to be compared two towns, one big urban city and other small

country town to investigate which planning is more ecological and which cosumes less resour-

ces in terms of size, transportation, typology and form.

Why and how can we reduce the ecological footprint?

05

Image 03

Spatial planning

Starting with the dimension of urban size, it is interesting to compare the two urban areas,

Big urban town (X) and small country town (Y) are two complete living, shopping and working

areas, but they are so different (in size, extent). Citing the research of Erling Holden “Ecologi-

cal footprints and sustainable urban form” for the Western Norway Research Institute.

They compare the average ecological footprints per household for the two areas are 1.56 ha/

year (Førde) and 1.70 ha/year (Greater Oslo). Per household member, these figures are 0.83 ha/

year and 0.76 ha/year respectively. This shows that the inhabitants of the small rural town of

Førde have an ecological footprint that is 10% less than their urban counterparts in the larger

city suburb of Greater Oslo. What causes this? Mainly differences in travel patterns.

With regard to daily journeys, the Greater Oslo results are favourable. Per household member,

the residents of the capital travel 60 km per week, while the corresponding figure for Førde’s

residents is 98 km. This is mainly because car density is greater in Førde, where 92% of house-

holds have access to a car, compared with ‘only’ 85% in Greater Oslo. However, if we look at

the total distance travelled by car throughout the year, and if we now include the long holiday

and leisure journeys, this picture is reversed. Despite less car access, households in Greater

Oslo have the greatest mobility. In fact, household members in Greater Oslo travel an average

Size is not important

06

Small town (Y) Big urban town (X) Image 04

of 1,500 kilometres more per year and travel further on privately booked air flights. This implies

that average household members in Greater Oslo use 14% more energy each year

on private transportation than their rural counterparts in Førde.

These data reveal that the difference of consumption in a big town and in a little town are

so close but if we only look the local travels we can conclude that for reduce the ecological

footprint is better a compact and high problate city with many supplies in the same area than

a small town where people needs to travel more km for finding these supplies.

High density vs. less urban sprawl

There are many reasons why dense and concentrated housing is positive from an environ-

mental point of view. First, sparsely populated areas have a much higher percentage of single-

family (detached) houses. People living in single-family houses have a significantly higher

energy consumption as well as material housing consumption than people in all other types of

housing. Second, the houses are generally larger in sparsely populated areas, which again in-

fluences consumption patterns significantly. Finally, the percentage of households with access

to a private car is higher in sparsely populated areas. Car access is the most important factor

in influencing a household’s transport energy use. Then, one of the main difference between

densely versus sparsely populated areas is the distance to the city center, households living

near the city centre tend to live in multi-family residential buildings or smaller houses and

have less access to their own car than those living near, or on, the urban fringe.

07

We have to think which are the characteristics of a situation with a less impact on the envi-

roment, in other words the smallelst ecological footprint. The answer is planning a suitable

living situation that helps to reduce as much as possible the consumption, also a situation

that allows us to avoid any compensatory effects, in the form of long holidays and leisure trips.

Based in the last facts, these are:

• dense and concentrated housing like flats or “vertical urbanism”

• high density in residential areas.

• shortest possible distance to the city centre.

To conclude, I want to say that if for the growing of the cities a possible and utopic idea is

the vertical urbanism instead the occupation of huge areas of land, to reduce the ecological

footprint in terms of transportation and consumption we can apply the same urban design

(look at “The city of the future” Vertical urbanism, term paper of Urban Ecology WS 2011-2012)

if we concentrate people and supplies in the same “neighborhood” or building.

Conclusions

08

Image 05

Bibliography

Articles

- Ecological Footprint Atlas 2010. 13 October 2010. Global Footprint Network.

- Lection 8 Spatial Planning Seminar SS 2012. Resource requirements, ecological footprint.

KURT FEDRA. http://www.ess.co.at/SPATIALPLANNING/

- Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 19: 91–109, 2004. Ecological footprints and

sustainable urban form. ERLING HOLDEN. Western Norway Research Institute, P.O.

Webpages

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint

- http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/

- http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/

- http://ec.europa.eu/environment/natres/studies.htm

- http://habitat.aq.upm.es/boletin/n32/armor.html

Images

Image 01. Image of Footprintnetwork

Image 02. Image of Footprintnetwork

Image 03. Ecological footprint overshoot. Self-Drawing

Image 04. Difference between big and small urban town. Self-Drawing

Image 05. Differences between Household and household menbers. Self-Drawing based on the

research of “Ecological footprints and sustainable urban form”. ERLING HOLDEN.

09