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February
6, 2007 A recent study shows
human
population size and affluence are the main drivers of human-caused
environmental stressors, while urbanization, economic structure and age
of
population have little effect. Modeling global
average
productivity to compare environmental tradeoffs and human-induced
stressors in
the environment Thomas Dietz (Michigan State University), Eugene Rosa
(Washington State University) and Richard York (University of Oregon)
studied
the impact of humans on the environment in a recent study, "Driving the
human ecological footprint," published in the February issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
The researchers focused on the ecological footprint, a measure of how
consumption may affect the environment by taking account of food and
fiber
production, energy use, and human use of land for living space and
other
purposes. Population size and
affluence
have long been hypothesized to be primary drivers of environmental
impact,
however doubts over their relative impact remained due to a lack of
extensive testing
and contradictory arguments in regards to the impact of affluence. In
the study
Dietz and colleagues estimate the relative importance of the
hypothesized
drivers of environmental impact at the nation-state level. They then
utilize
their results to project future levels of stressors. Restricting their
data to
countries of at least one million people, Dietz and colleagues
calculated basic
forms of consumption, including crops, meat, energy, and living space,
using
data from the World Wide Fund for Nature. United Nations reports were
used to
measure human well-being, population, and urbanization, while data from
the
World Bank were used to determine economic influences. The relative
importance
of each hypothesized driver on environmental impact was then estimated
and used
to project future levels of stressors. They found that increased
affluence
exacerbates environmental impacts and, when combined with population
growth,
will substantially increase the human footprint on the planet. Researchers
projected 20 nations
that will have the largest ecological footprints in 2015, with the "Increasing energy
efficiency to counteract these impacts is feasible, but would need a
focused
international effort to succeed," say the researchers. According to the
study, one advantage
to the rapid growth of these two nations is with the development of
their
infrastructures in the early 21st Century: "China would need to
improve
its technical efficiency at a rate of about 2.9 percent per year, and
India by
about 2.2 percent per year to offset the projected growth of their
ecological
footprints," say the scientists. Amazonia revealed:
forest
degradation and the loss of ecosystem goods and services in the Also appearing in
the February
issue of Frontiers, researchers review newly revealed changes in the
Amazon
rainforests and the ecosystem services they provide. The Emerging research
indicates land
use in the Amazon goes far beyond clearing large areas of forest;
selective
logging and other canopy damage is much more pervasive than once
believed.
Deforestation causes collateral damage to the surrounding forests
– through
enhanced drying of the forest floor, increased frequency of fires, and
lowered
productivity. The loss of healthy forests can degrade key ecosystem
services,
such as carbon storage in biomass and soils, the regulation of water
balance
and river flow, the modulation of regional climate patterns, and the
amelioration of infectious diseases.
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