IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v69y2010i3p459-468.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity: A tool for regional sustainability assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Graymore, M.L.M.
  • Sipe, Neil G.
  • Rickson, Roy E.

Abstract

Regional sustainability is an important focus for natural resource management. Measuring how social and economic systems are progressing to sustainability is therefore a critical need. But it is dependent upon the development of analytical and methodological tools to measure progress, particularly, we argue, at the regional level. Achieving sustainability at the regional scale is important since it's at this scale where social institutions and ecological functioning are most closely linked. However, our recent study that evaluated the effectiveness of current sustainability assessment methods at the regional scale found methods developed for the global, national and state scales are not entirely effective at assessing sustainability at this spatial scale. Following on from this critique, we developed and tested a new method for assessing sustainability, which we believe is applicable at the regional scale. The framework, Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity (SHCC), evaluates the sustainability of regional human activities by considering the pressures these activities have on regional ecosystems. SHCC was tested and evaluated at the regional scale, demonstrating its potential to be an effective method for monitoring sustainability. It also has potential to be used to inform the community and decision makers about the sustainability of their region, and help guide strategic planning to progress sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Graymore, M.L.M. & Sipe, Neil G. & Rickson, Roy E., 2010. "Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity: A tool for regional sustainability assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 459-468, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:69:y:2010:i:3:p:459-468
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(09)00325-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marten Scheffer & Steve Carpenter & Jonathan A. Foley & Carl Folke & Brian Walker, 2001. "Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems," Nature, Nature, vol. 413(6856), pages 591-596, October.
    2. Graymore, Michelle L.M. & Sipe, Neil G. & Rickson, Roy E., 2008. "Regional sustainability: How useful are current tools of sustainability assessment at the regional scale?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 362-372, October.
    3. Bossel, Hartmut, 2000. "Policy assessment and simulation of actor orientation for sustainable development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 337-355, December.
    4. Gustavson, Kent R. & Lonergan, Stephen C. & Ruitenbeek, H. Jack, 1999. "Selection and modeling of sustainable development indicators: a case study of the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 117-132, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wallis, Anne M. & Graymore, Michelle L.M. & Richards, Anneke J., 2011. "Significance of environment in the assessment of sustainable development: The case for south west Victoria," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 595-605, February.
    2. Yigang Wei & Cui Huang & Patrick T. I. Lam & Yong Sha & Yong Feng, 2015. "Using Urban-Carrying Capacity as a Benchmark for Sustainable Urban Development: An Empirical Study of Beijing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-25, March.
    3. Ian Hodge & William M. Adams, 2016. "Short-Term Projects versus Adaptive Governance: Conflicting Demands in the Management of Ecological Restoration," Land, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-17, November.
    4. Jenerette, G. Darrel & Lal, Rattan, 2007. "Modeled carbon sequestration variation in a linked erosion–deposition system," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 200(1), pages 207-216.
    5. Teh, Su Yean & DeAngelis, Donald L. & Sternberg, Leonel da Silveira Lobo & Miralles-Wilhelm, Fernando R. & Smith, Thomas J. & Koh, Hock-Lye, 2008. "A simulation model for projecting changes in salinity concentrations and species dominance in the coastal margin habitats of the Everglades," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 213(2), pages 245-256.
    6. Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2020. "Moral judgment of environmental harm caused by a single versus multiple wrongdoers: A survey experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    7. Kong, Xiang-Zhen & Jørgensen, Sven Erik & He, Wei & Qin, Ning & Xu, Fu-Liu, 2013. "Predicting the restoration effects by a structural dynamic approach in Lake Chaohu, China," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 266(C), pages 73-85.
    8. Paul L. G. Vlek & Asia Khamzina & Hossein Azadi & Anik Bhaduri & Luna Bharati & Ademola Braimoh & Christopher Martius & Terry Sunderland & Fatemeh Taheri, 2017. "Trade-Offs in Multi-Purpose Land Use under Land Degradation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-19, November.
    9. Sonia Kéfi & Vishwesha Guttal & William A Brock & Stephen R Carpenter & Aaron M Ellison & Valerie N Livina & David A Seekell & Marten Scheffer & Egbert H van Nes & Vasilis Dakos, 2014. "Early Warning Signals of Ecological Transitions: Methods for Spatial Patterns," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-13, March.
    10. Duncan A. O’Brien & Smita Deb & Gideon Gal & Stephen J. Thackeray & Partha S. Dutta & Shin-ichiro S. Matsuzaki & Linda May & Christopher F. Clements, 2023. "Early warning signals have limited applicability to empirical lake data," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    11. Can Askan Mavi & Nicolas Quérou, 2020. "Common pool resource management and risk perceptions," DEM Discussion Paper Series 20-25, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    12. Majid Ebrahimi & Hamid Nejadsoleymani & Mohammad Reza Mansouri Daneshvar, 2019. "Land suitability map and ecological carrying capacity for the recognition of touristic zones in the Kalat region, Iran: a multi-criteria analysis based on AHP and GIS," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 697-718, October.
    13. Therese Lindahl & Anne-Sophie Crépin & Caroline Schill, 2016. "Potential Disasters can Turn the Tragedy into Success," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(3), pages 657-676, November.
    14. Aarras, Nina & Rönkä, Mia & Kamppinen, Matti & Tolvanen, Harri & Vihervaara, Petteri, 2014. "Environmental technology and regional sustainability – The role of life-based design," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 52-59.
    15. Mariani, Fabio & Pérez-Barahona, Agustín & Raffin, Natacha, 2010. "Life expectancy and the environment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 798-815, April.
    16. Eppink, Florian V. & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2007. "Ecological theories and indicators in economic models of biodiversity loss and conservation: A critical review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 284-293, March.
    17. Janssen, Marco A. & Anderies, John M. & Walker, Brian H., 2004. "Robust strategies for managing rangelands with multiple stable attractors," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 140-162, January.
    18. Gunnarsdottir, I. & Davidsdottir, B. & Worrell, E. & Sigurgeirsdottir, S., 2022. "Indicators for sustainable energy development: An Icelandic case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    19. Admiraal, Jeroen F. & Wossink, Ada & de Groot, Wouter T. & de Snoo, Geert R., 2013. "More than total economic value: How to combine economic valuation of biodiversity with ecological resilience," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 115-122.
    20. H. Klammler & P. S. C. Rao & K. Hatfield, 2018. "Modeling dynamic resilience in coupled technological-social systems subjected to stochastic disturbance regimes," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 140-159, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:69:y:2010:i:3:p:459-468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.