A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Assessing the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity of Portuguese cities: Critical results for environmental awareness and local management
Abstract The unsustainable use of our planet's resources needs to be tackled from different angles and multiple levels of governance. As the human population urbanizes, having access to reliable, cross-cutting, quantitative city-level sustainability metrics is key to understanding the environmental impacts of urban dwellers and the role cities can play in the 21st century sustainability challenge. Framing the environmental pillar of urban sustainability with an overarching metric like the Ecological Footprint informs stakeholders and citizens about a city's overall pressure on the biosphere. In Portugal, six cities established a pioneering collaborative project to guide their transition to sustainability and support city governance; this paper presents the results of the first phase of the project. We tracked annual demand for natural resources and ecological services by the city residents and compared it against the “carrying capacity” of the cities' ecological assets. We then assessed the ability of this new data to increase local environmental awareness and support local public policies in Portugal and elsewhere. Lessons from this study inform the ongoing debate on the Ecological Footprint's usefulness as sustainability metric for cities, and point to specific policy insights for managing key consumption sectors and reaching key targets such as the UN SDGs.
Highlights A replicable top-down Footprint approach was used for city sustainability assessments. This approach is consistently applied across six Portuguese municipalities. Major city (un)sustainability drivers were identified and used to ease local policies. Lessons learned informed ongoing debates on city sustainability assessments. Ecological Footprint accounting can be used to support local strategies and reach SDGs targets.
Assessing the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity of Portuguese cities: Critical results for environmental awareness and local management
Abstract The unsustainable use of our planet's resources needs to be tackled from different angles and multiple levels of governance. As the human population urbanizes, having access to reliable, cross-cutting, quantitative city-level sustainability metrics is key to understanding the environmental impacts of urban dwellers and the role cities can play in the 21st century sustainability challenge. Framing the environmental pillar of urban sustainability with an overarching metric like the Ecological Footprint informs stakeholders and citizens about a city's overall pressure on the biosphere. In Portugal, six cities established a pioneering collaborative project to guide their transition to sustainability and support city governance; this paper presents the results of the first phase of the project. We tracked annual demand for natural resources and ecological services by the city residents and compared it against the “carrying capacity” of the cities' ecological assets. We then assessed the ability of this new data to increase local environmental awareness and support local public policies in Portugal and elsewhere. Lessons from this study inform the ongoing debate on the Ecological Footprint's usefulness as sustainability metric for cities, and point to specific policy insights for managing key consumption sectors and reaching key targets such as the UN SDGs.
Highlights A replicable top-down Footprint approach was used for city sustainability assessments. This approach is consistently applied across six Portuguese municipalities. Major city (un)sustainability drivers were identified and used to ease local policies. Lessons learned informed ongoing debates on city sustainability assessments. Ecological Footprint accounting can be used to support local strategies and reach SDGs targets.
Assessing the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity of Portuguese cities: Critical results for environmental awareness and local management
Galli, Alessandro (author) / Iha, Katsunori (author) / Moreno Pires, Sara (author) / Mancini, Maria Serena (author) / Alves, Armando (author) / Zokai, Golnar (author) / Lin, David (author) / Murthy, Adeline (author) / Wackernagel, Mathis (author)
Cities ; 96
2019-08-23
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Forecasting Biocapacity and Ecological Footprint at a Worldwide Level to 2030 Using Neural Networks
| DOAJ | 2022
| Springer Verlag | 2023
| Springer Verlag | 2023