Definitions
The concept of ecological footprint was first brought by Rees (1992) by using “human carrying capacity” and “natural capital” to understand the ecological perspectives in the global economic change. Later, the methodological and calculation of ecological footprint was developed by Wackernagel and Rees (1996) in their path breaking work “Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth.” Broadly ecological footprint represents the land area which is necessary to sustain the existing levels of resource consumption as well as waste discharge by that given population (Wackernagel and Rees 1997). It is also related to carrying capacity, which means the population can be supported indefinitely in a given habitat without permanently damaging the ecosystem (Wackernagel and Rees 1996; Bicknell et al. 1998).
The ecological footprint is a simple measure of sustainability,...
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Chakraborty, T., Thakur, B.K. (2020). Ecological Footprint and Sustainable Development: A Two Way Approach. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Affordable and Clean Energy. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71057-0_41-1
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