Implications Population& Resources- Carryingcapacity&ecological Footprint Flashcards
Define carrying capacity
Maximum population size that an area or environment can sustain indefinitely
Define ecological footprint
Measure of the demand placed by humans on earths natural ecosystems
Human consumption of biological resources and the generation of waste compared to biospheres productive capacity in a year
Overshoot
Point when population and it’s associated consumption of resources exceed the long term carrying capacity of environment
Define total productive bio capacity
All the food / water / energy resources produced by earths natural systems annually to sustain us.
What does carry capacity depend on ?
Average lifestyle of populated concerned.
Earth can support large population of 10 billion people at a modest level of consumption but it will have a much lower carrying capacity if we use/waste more resources.
Depends on how much we use.
What does the carry capacity suggest about earths resources ?
That the Earth has bio productive limits and it can only accommodate so much consumption of its resourcesZ
TPBC divided by total populated = measure or carrying capacity and global ya available for each person on planet.
Example of ecological footprint
Individual carbon footprint
Calculations in 2010
If we shattered the earths productive bio capacity evenly each person has approx 2 global ha available to them.
Ecological footprint is uneven
Some places have below 2 gha
Some places have more.
Places with more could accommodate larger population or they can afford larger ecological footprint
Would would happen if all humans had ecolgoical footprint similar to Indian or Indonesian ?
Earth could support 15 billion people.
(If everyone lived as we do in uk then the earth could only support 2.5 billion)
(1.5 billion if we lived as average US)
Depends on location/ life style
Concept of Earth Overshoot Day
Earth Overshoot Day is the day In which we have used the productive bio capacity of the planet for that year.
After that day we go into ‘ecological debt’
2000 it was November 1st
2014 it was August 19th
S curve
Global pop growth is slowing down as start to adjust to carrying capacity.
Logistic model of pop growth which suggests as pop size increase the rate of increase declines as more environmental resistance is encountered leading eventually to an equilibrium fixed by carrying capacity.
Also as a result of greater awareness of the negative implications.
Need sustainable development.
define environment resistance
Environmental factors such as drought/ competition which restrict the biotic potential of an organism
Limiting factors slow down the growth rate.
Name 3 negative environmental implications of growing ecological footprint?
Climate change, increase in global warming.
More land taken for settlement/ industry/ transport/ livestock.
Defeatism of natural ecosystems (10% of coral reefs already beyond recovery)
