Eco Footprint

That word brought in me too many questions. First of all what is eco-footprint ? I remembered one of my friend submitted an assignment on the meaning of eco footprint. It is as follows : -

ecological footprint

-     n

a.      a measure of the amount of space or environment that is necessary in order to produce the goods and services that are required to support a particular lifestyle. Also known as footprint.

Ref.: A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation; Chris Park, 2007, Oxford University Press       

        

b.      productive land necessary to support humans in their lifestyle.

Ref.: Dictionary of Eco Design: An Illustrated Reference; Ken Yeang and Lillian Woo, 2010, Routledge

c.      the amount of productive land appropriated on average by each person (in the world,  a country,  etc)  for food,  water,  transport, housing,  waste management, and other purposes.

Ref.: Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition; Harper Collins, 1986

d.      something which has permanently damaged or had a negative impression on the environment; the impact of humans on ecosystems created by their overuse of land, water, and other natural resources.

Ref.: Dictionary.com’s 21^st Century Lexicon; Dictionary.com, 2003-11, LLC

e.      an area of the Earth that supplies the ecosystem resources for an organism to exist.

Ref.: Dictionary of Environment and Ecology; PH Collin, 1985, Bloomsbury Publishing

f.       The area of land functionally required to support a human society. In more economically developed countries, this will include land beyond the territory inhabited by that society; that is to say, the land from which its imports are sourced. In this way, a society may easily exceed the carrying capacity of its own territory.

Ref.: A Dictionary of Geography; Susan Mayhew, Oxford University Press

 Akanksha Krishnan

This gave a vague idea of what eco-footprint but not a comparison. This was made slightly clearer with the exercise of calculating the eco-footprint of various people in different situations; this includes different countries, different lifestyle etc.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/