Stretching the ecosystems beyond their limits
Ecological Footprints tell the extent to which people use what the biosphere provides. The Footprint methodology can therefore also measure the environmental demands of food production and show to what extent food production contributes to the overall demand of people on the biosphere. Ecological Footprint accounting quantifies both the annual availability of biocapacity and human demand on that capacity (Wackernagel et al. 2002; Borucke et al. 2013). Results are expressed in a globally comparable, standardized unit called the global hectare (gha). Overall projections of future human demand on the Earth’s biocapacity, based on aggregating moderate UN scenarios of population growth, food demand and energy use, conclude that by 2050 humanity’s Ecological Footprint would be 2.5 to three times the planet’s biocapacity.
Year: 2015
From collection: Food wasted, Food lost
Cartographer: Riccardo Pravettoni