1.4 Sustainability

Question 1

What is sustainability?

Answer 1

The use and management of resources that allows for full natural replacement of the exploited resources and full natural recovery of the ecosystems affected by this extraction and use.

Question 2

What is natural capital?

Answer 2

A store of natural resources that can produce a sustainable source of goods and services

Question 4

What is natural income?

Answer 4

Yield/interest generated by natural capital

Question 5

What is biocapacity?

Answer 5

The total measure of resources available within a country producing what it needs and to process its waste

Question 6

What are ecosystem services?

Answer 6

The services ecosystems provide that are essential to human life

Question 7

Examples of forest ecosystem services:

Answer 7

• air purification
• protection from erosion/landslides
• intrinsic value
  -CO2 removal and O2 production
• flood protection
• recreation/tourism

Question 8

What problem do humans face when it comes to (sustainable) development?

Answer 8

Hard to be sustainable:
increase in population +increase in demand
= depletion of natural resources
= decrease in sustainability

Question 9

What is sustainable development?

Answer 9

The ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generation to meet their own needs

Question 10

What 3 pillars does sustainable development consist of? How well are these followed through with in the UN SDGs?

Answer 10

Social, economic and environmental development.
They mostly focus on social and economic development, and those with high ranking aren’t necessarily environmentally sustainable.

Question 11

What are the (objective) measures of environmental sustainability?

Answer 11

• Biodiversity
• Pollution (indirect or direct)
• Population (of humans)
• Climate

Question 12

What were the objectives and problems identified in the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment:

Answer 12

Objectives:
- assess links between ecosystem change and human well-being
- establish strategies to achieve sustainable use of ecosystems

Question 13

What are planetary boundaries?

Answer 13

The nine planetary boundaries humanity needs to stay within to ensure we can continue developing for generations to come

Question 14

Factors that affect biocapacity:

Answer 14

• Population density:
  (more dense = lower biocap.)
• Geography and biome:
  (warm and wet have higher biocap)
• GDP:
  (rich people consume more than porr people)

Question 15

What is overshoot?

Answer 15

How long it takes for society to exceed the sustainably available resources

Question 16

What are the reasons for overshoot?

Answer 16

Consuming more resources than available:
- imports
- unsustainable resource use

Question 17

What are environmental indicators?

Answer 17

Indicators identified by the MA to assess the sustainability of resource use:
- biodiversity
- pollution
- climate change

Question 18

EIAs (environment impact assessment) objectives:

Answer 18

• identify impacts that could result from the project
• improve decision making processes
• lessen any potential impacts

Question 19

EIA steps:

Answer 19

1. scoping
2. baseline study
   3 predicting and assessing effects
3. mitigation
4. final report/evaluation

Question 20

What are the criticisms of EIAs?

Answer 20

• lack of standard practice/training
• difficult to define system boundaries
• can increase costs and result in project being too costly
• ecosystems are complex and hard to predict