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Graphical Targeting Techniques for Carbon Emission Pinch Analysis (CEPA)
Published in Dominic C. Y. Foo, Raymond R. Tan, Process Integration Approaches to Planning Carbon Management Networks, 2020
Dominic C. Y. Foo, Raymond R. Tan
Land footprint is a measure of the land area used up by an energy system. This may be critical in the case of densely populated regions or countries where land is also essential for agricultural, industrial, and residential use. Examples of land footprint occurring from energy systems are the land requirements of solar energy farms and biomass plantations, as well as land area flooded upstream of large hydroelectric power plants.
The environmental footprint of the human species
Published in Arjen Y. Hoekstra, The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society, 2019
Let me introduce some members of the ‘footprint family’, the ones that are most common in the literature. The ‘ecological footprint’, the first footprint indicator, developed by Wackernagel and Rees (1996), measures the appropriation of land as a resource plus the land needed for waste uptake. The first component measures the areas that are in use as cropland, pasture, fishing grounds, built-up land and forestry. The second component, the land needed for waste uptake, generally focusses on measuring the forest land required for sequestering the carbon dioxide emitted through the burning of fossil fuels. The ecological footprint is measured in hectares, whereby actual hectares are weighted based on their biological productivity compared to the world average biological productivity per hectare. Since the ecological footprint refers to the use of bioproductive space in hectares, it is sometimes also called the land footprint. The latter term has become more attractive since the emergence of the other footprint indicators.
The water footprint of the EU: quantification, sustainability and relevance
Published in Water International, 2018
For integrated policy options, more indicators are required. Different authors therefore recommend using a family of environmental footprint indicators (Galli et al., 2012; Ibidhi, Hoekstra, Gerbens-Leenes, & Chouchane, 2017), the latter being an umbrella term for the different footprint concepts that have been developed during the last two decades (Hoekstra & Wiedmann, 2014). Other well-established footprint indicators include the nitrogen footprint (Leip et al., 2014), phosphorous footprint (van Dijk, Lesschen, & Oenema, 2016), land footprint (Weinzettel, Hertwich, Peters, Steen-Olsen, & Galli, 2013), carbon footprint and energy footprint. Indeed, policy recommendations developed based on one footprint indicator can make no sense when an additional indicator is analyzed (Mekonnen, Gerbens-Leenes, & Hoekstra, 2016a). In parallel, the LCA community developed methodologies that also include different resources and impacts, including for the resource water. To summarize: It is not recommended to develop integrated policy options based on the WF alone. Footprint families are better suited, possibly in addition to other indicators.The nitrogen and phosphorous footprints include a quantification of the impact on water pollution by use of these nutrients. As we do not use the grey WF component, these footprints account for this important pollution source.It is not recommended to develop trade policies based on only VW trade analyses.Risks in trade flows can, however, be detected, for example, for importing countries that import agricultural goods (partially) produced unsustainably (Hoekstra & Mekonnen, 2016; Vanham, Gawlik, & Bidoglio, 2017a) or with depleted groundwater (Dalin et al., 2017).There is a need to streamline the footprint and LCA methodologies.The strength of the LCA is that it integrates different resources and impacts in its analysis framework.