Biocapacity

The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[1][2] “Useful biological materials” are defined as those demanded by the human economy.

Biocapacity is expressed in terms of global hectares per person, thus is dependent on human population. A global hectare is an adjusted unit that represents the average biological productivity of all productive hectares on Earth in a given year (because not all hectares produce the same amount of ecosystem services). Biocapcity is calculated from United Nations population and land use data, and may be reported at various regional levels, such as a city, a country, or the world as a whole.

For example, there were 12 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water on this planet in 2008. Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 6.7 billion, gives a biocapacity of 1.8 global hectares per person . This assumes that no land is set aside for other species that consume the same biological material as humans.[3]

Biocapacity is used together with Ecological Footprint as a method of measuring Human impact on the environment. Biocapacity and Ecological Footprint are tools created by the Global Footprint Network, used in sustainability studies around the world.

Applications of biocapacity

An increase in global population can result in a decrease in biocapacity. This is usually due to the fact that the Earth’s resources have to be shared; therefore, there becomes little to supply the increasing demand of the increasing population.[4] Currently, this issue can be resolved by outsourcing. However, resources will run out due to the increasing demands and as a result a collapse of an ecosystem can be the consequence of such actions.[4] When the ecological footprint becomes greater than the biocapacity of the population, a biocapacity deficit is suspected.[5] 'Global biocapacity' is a term sometimes used to describe the total capacity of an ecosystem to support various continuous activity and changes. When the ecological footprint of a population exceeds the biocapacity of the environment it lives in, this can be called an 'ecological overshoot'.[5][6] A 2008 report stated that people were using an equivalence of 1.5 Earths to compensate for their needs.[4] However other sources have suggested that depletion of cropland, grazing land, forest land, fishing grounds, and built-up land is not occurring on an aggregate, global level. Hence, virtually all of the ecological overshoot comes from the measure of the rate at which carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere.[7] Additional stresses of greenhouse gases, climate change, and ocean acidification can also aggravate the problem.[4] In reference to the definition of biocapacity: 1.5 Earths means renewable resources will eventually result in depletion because they are being produced faster and more often than the resources can be re-grown.[4] Therefore, it will one year and six months for the resources we use to be able to regenerate again and in addition absorb all the waste we manufactured as well.[4] So instead of taking one year, we are now in-taking enough resources that should last us one year and six months.

In addition, if this matter becomes severe, an ecological reserve will be set on areas to preserve their ecosystems. Awareness about our depleting resources include: agricultural land, forest resources and rangeland.[8] Biocapacity used in correlation to ecological footprint can therefore suggest whether a specific population, region, country or part of a world is living in the means of their capital. Accordingly, the study of biocapacity and ecological footprint is known as the Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA).[1]

Biocapacity is also affected on the technology used during the year. With new technologies emerging, it is not whether the technology in that year is good or bad but whether how the technology impacts resource supply and demand; which in return affects biocapacity.[1] Hence what is considered “useful” can change from year to year (e.g. use of corn (maize) stover for cellulosic ethanol production would result in corn stover becoming a useful material, and thus increase the biocapacity of maize cropland).

Moreover, environmentalists have created ecological footprint calculators for a single person(s) to determine whether they are encompassing more than what is available for them in their population.[9] Consequently, biocapacity results will be applied to their ecological footprint to determine how much they may contribute or take away from sustainable development.

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 – that is the demand constructed on behalf of a regional ecosystem.[9] Biocapacity is able to determine the human impacts on Earth. By determining productivity of land, hence the resources available for human consumption, biocapacity will be able to predict and perhaps examine the effects on the ecosystems closely based on collected results of human consumption. .The biocapacity of an area is calculated by multiplying the actual physical area by the yield factor and the appropriate equivalence factor. Biocapacity is usually expressed in global hectares (gha).[10] Since global hectares is able to convert human consumptions like food and water into a measurement, biocapacity can be applied to determine the carrying capacity of the Earth.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Frequently Asked Questions". Global Footprint Network: Advancing the Science of Sustainability. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
  2. ↑ Yue, Dongxia; Guo, Jianjun; Hui, Cang (2013). "Scale dependency of biocapacity and the fallacy of unsustainable development". Journal of Environmental Management. 126: 13–19. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.04.022.
  3. ↑ Ecological Wealth of Nations: Earth's Biocapacity as a new framework for International Cooperation
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "What does ecological overshoot mean?". World Wildlife Fund. WWF. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
  5. 1 2 "Natures regenerative capacity". World Wildlife Fund. WWF. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
  6. ↑ Venetoulis, Jason; Talberth, John (5 January 2007). "Refining the ecological footprint". Environment, Development and Sustainability. 10 (4): 441–469. doi:10.1007/s10668-006-9074-z.
  7. ↑ "Does the Shoe Fit? Real versus Imagined Ecological Footprints". PLOS biology journal.
  8. ↑ Hayden, Anders (December 30, 2013). "ecological footprint (EF)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
  9. 1 2 Hopton, Matthew E.; White, Denis (2012). "A simplified ecological footprint at a regional scale". Journal of Environmental Management. 111: 279–286. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2011.07.005.
  10. ↑ "Bioresources, Biocapacity of Ecosystems, and related terms". Michel Serres Institute: for resources and public goods. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
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