TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of Locational Choices and Consumer Behaviors on Personal Land Footprints
T2 - An Exploration across the Urban-Rural Continuum in the United States
AU - Zeng, Lin
AU - Ramaswami, Anu
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation: Partnership in Sustainability Research Network Award (SRN-1444745).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2020/3/17
Y1 - 2020/3/17
N2 - Land is a scarce resource. We develop consumption-based land footprints (CBLF) for urban and rural U.S. residents to evaluate new levers for reducing land-demand by combining (1) direct land-use for human settlements including housing, (2) indirect land-use associated with personal consumption, for example, food and clothing. Results show that an average urban resident's indirect land-use (199 »176 ft2/capita) is ∼23 times the direct land-use (8519 ft2/capita), for a total urban CBLF of 207 »695 ft2/capita. Rural residents have a slightly higher (∼6%) indirect land-use and ∼10 times larger direct land-use compared to urban. Because in both cases, indirect land-use is much larger than direct, a strategic mix of individual actions including halving food waste (-4.7%), one-day weekly plant-based diet (-3.3%), reducing clothing consumption (-2.8%), and others, can together reduce CBLF by -12.8%. Meanwhile, housing and locational choices across the urban-rural continuum evaluated for the median-density Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSP MSA) yield CBLF reductions from -1.9% (from single- to multifamily housing) to -10.6% (from rural to the urban core). The analysis demonstrates that consumer behavior changes could rival housing/locational choices in order to reduce personal CBLF. Our method of combining input-output analysis with parcel data could be applied in different regions to provide customized information on CBLF mitigation strategies.
AB - Land is a scarce resource. We develop consumption-based land footprints (CBLF) for urban and rural U.S. residents to evaluate new levers for reducing land-demand by combining (1) direct land-use for human settlements including housing, (2) indirect land-use associated with personal consumption, for example, food and clothing. Results show that an average urban resident's indirect land-use (199 »176 ft2/capita) is ∼23 times the direct land-use (8519 ft2/capita), for a total urban CBLF of 207 »695 ft2/capita. Rural residents have a slightly higher (∼6%) indirect land-use and ∼10 times larger direct land-use compared to urban. Because in both cases, indirect land-use is much larger than direct, a strategic mix of individual actions including halving food waste (-4.7%), one-day weekly plant-based diet (-3.3%), reducing clothing consumption (-2.8%), and others, can together reduce CBLF by -12.8%. Meanwhile, housing and locational choices across the urban-rural continuum evaluated for the median-density Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSP MSA) yield CBLF reductions from -1.9% (from single- to multifamily housing) to -10.6% (from rural to the urban core). The analysis demonstrates that consumer behavior changes could rival housing/locational choices in order to reduce personal CBLF. Our method of combining input-output analysis with parcel data could be applied in different regions to provide customized information on CBLF mitigation strategies.
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.est.9b06024
DO - 10.1021/acs.est.9b06024
M3 - Article
C2 - 32083481
AN - SCOPUS:85082146832
SN - 0013-936X
VL - 54
SP - 3091
EP - 3102
JO - Environmental Science & Technology
JF - Environmental Science & Technology
IS - 6
ER -