Sustainable development

Define sustainable development in your own words and describe a decision that your local council could take (regarding transport, energy, or waste management) that is consistent with this concept, justifying your answer.

Differentiate between the concepts of environmental impact and ecological footprint, using the construction of a major motorway through a rural area as an example.

Explain what the ecological footprint measures and what unit it is expressed in. Name two everyday activities that increase it and two that reduce it, giving reasons for each.

Name the main components of the ecological footprint (carbon footprint, cropland, grazing land, fishing grounds, forest and land occupied by infrastructure) and explain what two of them, of your choice, consist of.

Order these ways of getting to school from smallest to largest ecological footprint and justify the order: cycling, driving alone, taking the city bus and car-sharing between four people.

Define biocapacity and explain how it differs from the ecological footprint, indicating the relationship between the two when a territory lives beyond its means.

Explain what a country's ecological deficit is and discuss what it implies that Spain has a persistent deficit: where do the resources that its own territory does not produce come from?

The diagram compares the ecological footprint and available biocapacity per inhabitant of a city. Calculate its ecological deficit per inhabitant (the section marked with '?') and explain what this result means.

Order these three diets from smallest to largest ecological footprint and justify the order based on the land area, water, and energy each requires: vegetarian diet, diet rich in beef, and Mediterranean diet.

The average biocapacity of the planet is approximately $1,6\ \text{gha/capita}$. In a developed country (A), the average ecological footprint reaches $4,7\ \text{gha/capita}$, while its own territorial biocapacity is $1,4\ \text{gha/capita}$. In a developing country (B), the footprint is $1,1\ \text{gha/capita}$ and its territorial biocapacity is $2,6\ \text{gha/capita}$.

1. a) Calculate how many planet Earths would be needed if the entire world population adopted the consumption pattern of country A. With that data, calculate with justification on which day of the year (Earth Overshoot Day) humanity would exhaust the regenerative resources of the planet under such a pattern.
2. b) Calculate the ecological deficit or reserve of both countries (territorial biocapacity minus footprint). Explain, in biogeochemical and trade terms, how country A manages to maintain consumption far exceeding its local biological capacity without immediately collapsing.
3. c) Assess the outcome from the perspective of global equity and ecological debt: what long-term biophysical consequences does the consumption pattern of country A have for country B and for the biosphere as a whole?

A large intensive agro-industrial complex located in a Mediterranean basin claims in its environmental report that it has reduced its ecological footprint by $30\ \%$ in five years because it electrified its machinery using solar energy and replaced plastic packaging with certified forest cellulose derivatives. However, the technical report of the basin warns that during that same period the company depleted local aquifers due to overexploitation of irrigation wells, increased nitrate contamination in groundwater, and caused a $70\ \%$ decline in steppe bird populations due to the removal of hedges and field margins.

1. a) Explain why the standard ecological footprint methodology does not reflect the severe impact on the aquifer or on the local wildlife. Identify two inherent biases or limitations of this indicator when assessing comprehensive environmental health.
2. b) Select two complementary indicators (such as the grey water footprint or biological integrity/biodiversity indices) and justify how they would accurately measure the impacts that the ecological footprint has omitted in this case.
3. c) Design a proposal for a sustainability "dashboard" for this agricultural region: define three irreplaceable biophysical axes and establish for each one a criterion or threshold that prevents improvement in one variable from masking the critical degradation of another.