Ecological Footprint as a tool for local sustainability: The municipality of Piacenza (Italy) as a case study

Abstract The Ecological Footprint is a synthetic index useful to assess sustainability of anthropic systems. Its operational use, however, has been hampered by some difficulties, especially at a local scale. Being conceived as a measure of the biologically productive area requested to sustain individual consumptions in a human community, it leaves out the impacts associated to economic activities. Accordingly, the index cannot contribute much to define local policies, whose target are economic activities, and only marginally affect citizens' behaviour. Ecological Footprint calculation scheme can be modified to include the depletion of natural capital due to local activities such as industry, agriculture, tertiary sector, transport, waste and water management. We provide here an approach which takes into account these different aspects, while we discuss its application to a municipal area as a case study.

[1]  Warren Mabee,et al.  Global fibre supply model , 1998 .

[2]  J. Houghton,et al.  Climate change 2001 : the scientific basis , 2001 .

[3]  Mathis Wackernagel,et al.  The ecological footprint of Santiago de Chile , 1998 .

[4]  Mathis Wackernagel,et al.  Ecological footprints of nations. How much nature do they use? How much nature do they have? , 1997 .

[5]  김경태,et al.  Ecological Footprint를 활용한 도시의 환경용량 평가 , 2006 .

[6]  Dame Betty Kershaw,et al.  Best foot forward. , 2008, Nursing standard (Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain) : 1987).

[7]  P. Joan Poor,et al.  Exploring the hedonic value of ambient water quality: A local watershed-based study , 2007 .

[8]  Mathis Wackernagel,et al.  EVALUATING THE USE OF NATURAL CAPITAL WITH THE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT : APPLICATIONS IN SWEDEN AND SUBREGIONS , 1999 .

[9]  Mathis Wackernagel,et al.  Natural capital accounting with the ecological footprint concept , 1999 .

[10]  Andrew Flynn,et al.  Reducing Cardiff’s ecological footprint: A resource accounting tool for sustainable consumption , 2005 .

[11]  Gene Bazan.  Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth , 1997 .

[12]  Ü. Rannik,et al.  Respiration as the main determinant of carbon balance in European forests , 2000, Nature.

[13]  Graham Haughton,et al.  Planning with Ecological Footprints: a sympathetic critique of theory and practice , 2006 .

[14]  Craig T. Simmons,et al.  The use of Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Analyses as Sustainability Indicators for Sub- national Geographical Areas: A Recommended Way Forward , 2001 .

[15]  Anthony Scott,et al.  The Ecological Footprint: A Metric for Corporate Sustainability , 2001 .

[16]  G. Darrel Jenerette,et al.  Linking ecological footprints with ecosystem valuation in the provisioning of urban freshwater , 2006 .

[17]  G. Brundtland,et al.  Our common future , 1987 .

[18]  Robert J. Scholes,et al.  The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide , 2001 .

[19]  Sašo Medved,et al.  Present and future ecological footprint of Slovenia—The influence of energy demand scenarios , 2006 .

[20]  G. D. Jenerette,et al.  Contrasting water footprints of cities in China and the United States , 2006 .

[21]  Bernadette O'Regan,et al.  Valuation of ecological impacts ¿ a regional approach using the ecological footprint concept , 2006 .

[22]  Mathis Wackernagel,et al.  Establishing national natural capital accounts based on detailed Ecological Footprint and biological capacity assessments , 2004 .

[23]  Brad R. Ewing,et al.  Living planet report 2008 , 2004 .

[24]  W. Rees.  Revisiting carrying capacity: Area-based indicators of sustainability , 1996 .

[25]  Mathis Wackernagel,et al.  Ecological Footprints and Energy , 2004 .