Making Environmental Sustainability Measurable: Ecological Footprint

ID:289-EOP

Making Environmental Sustainability Measurable:

Ecological Footprint

Zeynep CEYLAN1, Damla MUSTAFAOĞLU2, Şeyda Deniz AYDIN3

1Atatürk University, Faculty of Engineering, Environmental Engineering Department Erzurum, Turkey,

zceylan@atauni.edu.tr

2Atatürk University, Faculty of Engineering, Environmental Engineering Department, Erzurum, Turkey,

damlags83@hotmail.com

3Atatürk University, Faculty of Engineering, Environmental Engineering Department, Erzurum, Turkey,

sdenizaydin@gmail.com

Resources necessary for organisms to live are proportional to the numbers alive and are

continuously renewed by recycling mechanisms. This general definition may include many

criteria such as environmental, economic and social topics. Environmental sustainability is

defined as the renewable natural resources used by humans not exceeding the amount of

resources that can be simultaneously produced by nature. Ecological footprint is a marker

of sustainable lifestyle and is a quantitative calculation technique showing the biologic

production area amount (BIOLOGIC CAPACITY) consumed on a planetary level, the aerial

size of land and water required for waste disposal, how much of the biological productive

area is used by countries, towns, families or individuals and the number of planets required

in the future. The components of ecological footprint comprise footprints such as carbon

retention, agricultural land, forestry, pasture, constructed area, and fishing areas. Globally

the greatest environmental problem faced by all countries is the rapid consumption of

natural resources by humans. This problem brought awareness of ecological footprint and

is expressed in global hectares (gha). The more rapid consumption of natural resources

compared to production rates in Turkey shows the country’s ecological deficit. According

to the WWF report published in 2012, the total ecological footprint of production in Turkey

exceeded national biocapacity for the first time in 1972, and had reached nearly 1.6 times

the biocapacity by 2007 (2.1 gha). The consumption ecological footprint exceeded national

biocapacity in 1974 and was two times this threshold in 2007 [4]. In conclusion, in line with

the general trend globally, as ecological footprint grows in Turkey, the living planet index

falls. In other words, our country is becoming further removed from being an attractive

geography for biological diversity.

Keywords: Ecological footprint, biocapacity, environmental sustainability