Human Population Footprint Slower Than Expected

Three quarters of the earth's surface has experienced measurable pressures from humanity - whether from buildings, roads, crops, pastures, or other human structures or abilities. These pressures, called human population footprints, have been building intensely in the little that remained of our wild areas of high biodiversity.

Though expanding, growth in human footprint has lagged behind population & economic growth: study. https://t.co/cSTKYEI1Nc

— princetonstudiesfood (@PUStudiesFood) August 24, 2016

This is especially concerning, as people several companies have started making their way into protected areas, for instance, the Amazon rainforests. However, a recent report that appeared in the journal Nature Communications mentioned that growth in the footprint hasn't been as fast as expected. In fact, the footprint has lagged far behind population and economic growth. According to the study, population grew 23 percent from 1993 to 2009, while global economy grew a massive 153 percent. Human influence on land, however, came at only 9 percent.

Phys.org noted that the mismatch could suggest that the increasing urbanization and more sustainable use of resources may have actually helped buy time for the expanding human biome. Study co-author Marc Levy from Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) shared, "The fact that the average footprint is not rising nearly as fast as our economy or population is good news. It gives us some basis to hope we can save some of the natural areas we have left."

Wealthy countries like the United States, Canada, and almost all of the nations of western and northern Europe have made efforts to help make their energy production more sustainable, and therefore saw a decline in their footprints. However, places like South America saw small farmers abandoning their lands to move to larger cities, which has been key to the decreased human footprint despite increase in economic growth.

However, this does not mean that "business as usual" could be a good thing when it comes to long-term sustainability - we still need these natural resources after all. However, Levy noted that instead of letting urbanization "happen by accident, maybe there are ways we can leverage them."

"There's a new interest in finding ways of encouraging things like this to happen."