Estimativa do indicador de sustentabilidade ambiental pegada ecológica na área urbana da cidade de Pombal – PB.

Abstract

The Ecological Footprint (EP) is an environmental accounting methodology that evaluates, on the other hand, the consumption and the other natural resources capacity available on the planet. Thus arose the concern to check how much resources to urban population of the city of Pombal ˗ PB uses to sustain their lifestyles. Thus, the present study aimed to estimate the consumption of resources of the resident population in the built ˗ up area of the town of Pombal ˗ PB, using the EP indicator. The methods used consisted in the application of questionnaires dealing with consumption of food, goods, housing and transport, are necessary for the calculation of EP of each individual, such questionnaires also include the following information: address, gender, age, level of education of the individual and prior knowledge about the term EP; the use of the electronic calculator provided by Global Footprint Network ˗ GFN to estimate the value of the indicator; and, the use of gvSIG software for spatialization of theindicator results. The results indicate that the value of EP for residents in the urban area of the municipality of Pombal corresponded to 2.16 ha/hab therefore exceed the optimal value (1.7 ha/hab) and lower than the national (2.9 ha/hab) found in the literature, indicating a regeneration capacity of 1.2 planets per year needed to sustain the lifestyle of that population. The spatialization of the results in a thematic map allowed a better understanding and presentation of the results, in addition to the identification of major and minor neighborhoods with resource consumption, in the municipality.