Ecological Footprint as a tool for local sustainability: The municipality of Piacenza (Italy) as a case study
- Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Parma, Viale Usberti 11/A, 43100 Parma (Italy)
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.
- OSTI ID:
- 21180405
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Vol. 29, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1016/j.eiar.2008.07.001; PII: S0195-9255(08)00094-2; Copyright (c) 2008 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0195-9255
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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