Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis; Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization; a. Rotation converged in 5 iterations; Source: Made by the authors, based on data provided by 2019, Edition National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts and EUROSTAT. Bioresources, Biocapacity of Ecosystems, and Related Terms, 2014. The third cluster brings together the country group with high population density, with high life expectancy at birth, generally located in Southern Europe. ; Varandas, S.G.P. ; Sanches Fernandes, L.F.; Valle Junior, R.F. This cluster includes countries in which the positive situation of the environmental variables (the highest average biocapacity reserve, the lowest economic losses under the action of the extreme phenomena generated by the climate changes) contrasts with the unfavorable situation in terms of the development of the economic activity and of the human resources (with the lowest GDP per capita, below average levels of population health and education, a high level of social exclusion, and low developed research innovation sector). At the same time, these countries are characterized by a high degree of social inclusion, with low material deprivation rates and in work poverty, but also by close-to-average levels of population density. The components explain, in smaller proportions, the variation of the variables: Health care expenditures (64.2%), GPD per capita (65.7%), and In-Work-at-risk of poverty rate (66.9%). Available online: Gagelmann, F.; Frondel, M. The impact of emission trading on innovation-science fiction or reality? One of the notable contributions to quantifying the pressure that human activity puts on the environment belongs to Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees who, in 1994, introduced the concepts of "ecological footprint" and "biocapacity (or ecological capacity) [, Thus, the difference between ecological footprint and ecological capacity represents the biocapacity reserve or deficitconcepts that Wackernagel and Rees also contributed to [. permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. Humanity is currently demanding as much from nature as if we lived on 1.6 Earth. The Australian Terrestrial Carbon Budget. Biogeosciences 10, no. The level of economic development of a country has a significant influence on the behavior of the biocapacity reserve/deficit. The EU thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources defines them as "raw materials such as minerals, biomass and biological resources ; environmental media such as air, water and soil ; flow resources such as wind, geothermal, tidal and solar energy ; and space as land area". Disclaimer/Publishers Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely In general, biocapacity is the amount of resources available to people at a specific moment in time to a specific population ( supply) and to differentiate between ecological footprint - which is the environmental demand of a regional ecosystem. 2019. An advantage of the European countries in the first clusterin addition to the highest macroeconomic resultsis the high level of human resources development, with the highest percentages of GDP allocated to health, the largest participation in the education process and with high school performance. Thus, the manifestation of extreme phenomena is extended, leading to substantial economic losses, all of which result in the reduction of the biocapacity reserve. Recent estimates show that . The comparative analysis of the ecological footprint and biocapacity allows one to study the interaction between human activities and environment, through the biocapacity reserve or deficit. The challenge in this research is to understand which fires cause lasting damage to ecosystems. Our planet with its resources is considered, in economic theory, as one of the production factors without which the economic activity could not be carried on. ABARES. In line with the definition of sustainability to meet present natural resource demand and still preserve the natural capital as a bequest for future generations, ecological status is for the first time used as an indicator to assess the ecological health or . ERI is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States. This makes complementary research necessary to estimate additional effects not covered by UN data sets. Following the application of the statistical tests, these hypotheses were validated (, In conclusion, following the application of the multidimensional statistical analysis, the four hypotheses previously formulated referring to the categories of determinants that can significantly influence the behavior of the biocapacity reserve/deficit have been validated. These three factors resulted in a greater spread and intensity of fire. 3 C). Hoekstra, A.; Wiedmann, T. Humanitys unsustainable environmental footprint. The identification of the main determinants whose significant influence can explain the variations in biocapacity reserve/deficit is important for establishing the intervention tools on the optimization of the biocapacity deficit, in the economic, social, and environmental field. Pickrell, John. The explanation of these influences lies in the fact that a higher educational level and higher knowledge accumulations lead to a better professional training of the labor force, which, together with the reduction of the poverty rate, of social exclusion, represent the basis for an increase in the living standard and life quality. Ecological footprint, biocapacity and reserve or deficit The influence of the regression model components on the behavior of biodiversity is to some extent consistent with the research results of Lazarus et al. This component is named The economic development, innovation, health, and environment component. 2020; 12(3):1037. The model has the following general form: Following the data processing by applying the multiple linear regression method, we can say that the model explained 48.5% of the variation of the biocapacity reserve, with a statistically significant explanatory power over the dependent variable, and the relationship between the four variables had a high intensity (correlation ratio = 0.697) (, By applying the analysis of variance method (ANOVA) and Fishers test, the hypothesis of the validity of the regression model was tested, a hypothesis that can be accepted for a 95% confidence level (Sig. Australia Burning. The Lancet Planetary Health 4 (1): e1213. The main objective of the present research is to carry out a complex, multidimensional analysis of the biocapacity reserve/deficit, in order to identify its main determinants, covering all three main dimensions of sustainable development: The economic, social, and environmental pillar, as well as highlighting the tools through which one can intervene to restore a balance between consumption and availability of resources. This can be achieved as follows: In the educational fieldby reducing the early school leaving in some countries, by increasing the enrollment rate in education, by encouraging high school performance; in the health domainthrough more substantial investments in the health sector and increasing the accessibility of the population to the medical services; in the development research fieldby attracting public and/or private resources necessary for the development of the activity, by motivating, stimulating the employment in this sector, and by using the results of the research innovation in creating eco-friendly technologies, which will protect and raise the environment quality. Biocapacity - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics Strategy & society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12031037, Gogonea, Rodica-Manuela, Simona Ioana Ghita, and Andreea Simona Saseanu. January 30, 2020. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/01/extreme-wildfires-reshaping-forests-worldwide-recovery-australia-climate/. Fewer examples Investing in Natural Capital: The Ecological Economics Approach to Sustainability, Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research, Climate Policy and Technological Innovation and Transfer: An Overview of Trends and Recent Empirical Results, Technological Change and the EU ETS: The case of Ireland, Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications, Exploration of sustainable development theoryTheories and application of ecological carrying capacity. Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view. Available online: Rees, W.E. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ; Tnsescu, A.; Popescu, C. A Cluster Design on the Influence of Energy Taxation in Shaping the New EU-28 Economic Paradigm. Make your recycling needs as easy as possible, use our Recycle Search to find a location near you! https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-851-2013. The paper presents a multidimensional statistical-econometric analysis of the behavior of the environmental variables, especially of the reserve or deficit of biocapacity, identifying its main determinants, which characterize seven dimensions: Economic development, demography, education, health, social exclusion, research (innovation), and environment. Michel Serres Institute. If a given population's ecological footprint exceeds its biocapacity, that population has an ecological deficit. This way, the grouping of the multiple initial variables into a small number of components was performed, expressed as artificial variables that manage to retain an important part of the information of the initial dataset. ; Canadell, J.G. With its enormous landmass characterized by wide-open spaces and its relatively small population, it has been blessed with a significant biocapacity reserve: since record keeping started in 1961, its biocapacity was consistently estimated to be two to three times the size of its Ecological Footprint. The results aim at obtaining advanced technologies based on the most efficient use of non-renewable resources, as well as on increasing the use of renewable energy. ; Vuta, M.; Marin, E.; Cioaca, S.I. Sustainable Development Orientation (SDO) practice and its impact on innovation performance. Wildfires Have Spread Dramaticallyand Some Forests May Not Recover. National Geographic, January 30, 2020. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/01/extreme-wildfires-reshaping-forests-worldwide-recovery-australia-climate/. Biocapacity: Deficit or Reserve Biocapacity and Deficit Source: Global Footprint Network The data shows the % that the ecological footprint of a country exceeds it's biocapacity (deficit) or is lower than what it could theoretically handle (reserve). You are accessing a machine-readable page. Lenzen, M.; Moran, D.; Kanemoto, K.; Foran, B.; Lobefaro, L.; Geschke, A. A national ecological deficit means that the country is net-importing biocapacity through trade, liquidating national ecological assets or emitting more carbon dioxide waste into the atmosphere than its own ecosystems absorb. Ecological Deficit/Reserve - RecycleNation In order to assess the quality of the linear regression model, the following hypotheses were tested: The linear functional form, the normality of the residuals distribution, the residuals homoscedasticity, the non-correlation of the explanatory variables with the residual ones, the errors non-autocorrelation, and the non-correlation of the exogenous variables. Haverd, V., M. R. Raupach, P. R. Briggs, J. G. Canadell, S. J. Davis, R. M. Law, C. P. Meyer, G. P. Peters, C. Pickett-Heaps, and B. Sherman. The top five countries with a positive biocapacity reserve are led by Finland (with 6.37 global hectares per capita), followed by Sweden (with 3.9 global hectares per capita), Norway, and the Baltic countries. Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. According to the results obtained, the application of environmental protection measures is important to promote biodiversity in the context of sustainability. The tricky part is not so much how much has burned, but whether there are any trends on the rise, and whether there is evidence that the forest component of fires, show any slowdown of post-fire recovery and shortening of the fire return intervals. (personal communication, May 11, 2020). ABC news refers to about 435 million tonnes of CO2 released in the Australian 2019 forest fires. This year, we had a lot of emissions but we had other years in the past where we burned massive extensions of rangeland and savannas with also significant emissions. Torino (IT), Universit degli studi di Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy, 1012 September 2014. The Ecological Footprint and biocapacity calculations are done on a yearly basis. [10] Biocapacity is able to determine the human impacts on Earth. . According to the Global Footprint Network, this day has been offset by two months in the last two decades [, According to the Global Footprint Network, ecological footprint can be defined as: A measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and resource management practices, whileaccording to the same sourcebiological capacity or biocapacity constitutes The capacity of ecosystems to regenerate what people demand from those surfaces [. 2020. Similar term (s): biological capacity. The Biocapacity, or biological capacity , is the term used to define the availability of biologically productive area within a given territory. ; Sanches Fernandes, L.F.; Pacheco, F.A.L. However, the variables/factors used to explain the behavior of biocapacity reserve/deficit were numerous, which makes their generated effect difficult to interpret. Ecosystem Health, Human Existence, and Bio-capacity Deficit: The Ethical Relationship. The devastating fires of the Black Summer of 2019-2020 have turned Australias biocapacity reserve into a deficit, according to preliminary research by Global Footprint Network (1). Pulselli, F.M. Environmental performance, biocapacity, carbon & ecological footprint 2019. Forest data from FAO does not adequately capture catastrophic losses such as the Black Summer fire, which is another reason that the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts produce an overestimate of countries biocapacity. At the same time, this cluster includes countries with a low and very low level of population education, from the perspective of the variables included in the study, although the differences between the averages of the three clusters are sensitive.