Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2021
Reconciling a positive ecological balance with human development: A quantitative assessment
Tamburino, Lucia; Bravo, GiangiacomoAbstract
Clear indicators and evaluation criteria are essential to keep humanity's environmental impact within planetary boundaries. We introduce a new criterion based on two constraints, accounting for both ecological and human sustainability. The ecological constraint is defined through a novel indicator, the eco-balance, grounded on the well known concept of ecological footprint and the new concept of population biodensity. The human sustainability constraint is based on the estimated level of biocapacity consumption needed to achieve an acceptable level of human development. The application of our criterion to world countries shows where technological improvements and changes in consumption patterns are sufficient to reach sustainability, and where actions on population and/or restoring ecological capital are also needed. This highlights synergic patterns going beyond simplistic schemes, such as overconsumption vs. overpopulation or developed vs. developing countries.Keywords
Sustainability criteria; Population density; Biocapacity; Per capita impactPublished in
Ecological Indicators2021, volume: 129, article number: 107973
Publisher: ELSEVIER
Authors' information
Tamburino, Lucia
Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (IGDORE)
Tamburino, Lucia
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Crop Production Ecology
Bravo, Giangiacomo
Linnaeus University
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
UKÄ Subject classification
Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Publication Identifiers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107973
URI (permanent link to this page)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/113167