Abstract
Since Wackernagel and Rees introduced the idea of the ecological footprint in 1992 [28, 21, 27], it has been established as a concept of measuring the sustainability of nations, regions, cities, individuals, industrial goods, etc. Today, the ecological footprint is seen as a measure of demand of natural resources with respect to the regeneration capacity of the Earth. Since the findings of Rees [21], quite sophisticated calculation procedures have been defined [15]. They are based on the generic idea that every impact on earth—which is a closed system—can be converted to an amount of biologically productive area. To allow comparability, they are expressed in global hectares (gha), which represent the average spatial productivity worldwide.
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Özdemir, E.D., Marathe, S.D. (2013). Ecological Footprint: The Example of Gauteng Region. In: Jenssen, T. (eds) Glances at Renewable and Sustainable Energy. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5137-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5137-1_4
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