Ecological footprint
Ecological Footprint
The Ecological Footprint (pronunciation: ih-koh-loj-i-kuhl foot-print) is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is often used to gauge the extent of human impact on the planet's resources.
Etymology
The term "Ecological Footprint" was first coined by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees in 1992. The word "ecological" is derived from the Greek word "oikos", meaning "house", and "logos", meaning "study". The term "footprint" is used metaphorically to represent the mark that humans leave on the environment.
Definition
The Ecological Footprint is a measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and resource management practices. The Ecological Footprint is usually measured in global hectares.
Related Terms
- Biocapacity: The capacity of a given biologically productive area to generate an ongoing supply of renewable resources and to absorb its spillover wastes.
- Carbon Footprint: The total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).
- Sustainability: The ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
- Global Hectare: A unit of measurement for the ecological footprint, representing the productivity of the average hectare of land.
- Overshoot: The extent to which the world's population exceeds the planet's capacity to sustainably support it.
See Also
External links
- Medical encyclopedia article on Ecological footprint
- Wikipedia's article - Ecological footprint
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