Índice de pegadas ambientais integradas (IPAI): modelo e validação.

Abstract

Carbon, ecological and water footprints models are increasingly being used for monitoring personal and household of natural resources. These human footprints are serious global threat and every nation is looking at the possible options to reduce it since its consequences are alarming. This work proposes the use of integrated footprints approaches as a tool for assessing the direct and indirect environmental impacts from human activity. Based on the definition of carbon, water and ecological footprints, it was constructed the Integrated Environmental Sustainability Index (IESI). It was provided for the first time a definition of the “Footprint environmental” as a suite of indicators to track human pressure on the planet and under different angles which is the environmental sustainability multidimensional index. This index has been constructed on the premise that no single indicator per se is able to comprehensively monitor human impact on the environment, but indicators rather need to be used and interpreted jointly. The results indicate that the IESI is an accurate index which can help public and private organizations in environmental decision-making processes. A heterogeneous community of Naturist presented the highest IESI index (0.90), classified as into critical range, while the Indigenous community presented the lowest value of IESI (0.47), into the Moderately Acceptable range, which is considered sustainable. The Oceania continent showed the highest index IESI (1.82) classified as Untenable, while Africa had a IESI value of 0.67 classified as into alert range, although it is the lowest mean value found in the study . The IESI mean of the continents has global index of 1.16 into Untenable range, showing that the planet's capacity of sustainability.