Question

i need a Definition for each term and Example

1- ecological footprint

2- ecological rucksack

3- biomimicry

Answer 1

1)The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature, i.e., the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use for their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region or the world (biocapacity, the productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature). In short, it is a measure of human impact on Earth's ecosystem and reveals the dependence of the human economy on natural capital.

*The ecological footprint is defined as the biologically productive area needed to provide for everything people use: fruits and vegetables, fish, wood, fibers, absorption of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use, and space for buildings and roads.

2)An ecological rucksack is defined as the total quantity (in kg) of materials removed from nature to create a product or service, minus the actual weight of the product. It considers the entire production process, from the cradle to the point when the product is ready for use. The rucksack factor (MI) is the total amount of natural materials utilised (kg) to make 1 kg of the resource, raw or starting (e.g. wood, iron, etc.).

*Five different rucksacks have been delineated by the Wuppertal Institute to describe the overall natural resource intensity of products. These correspond to the five environmental spheres of: water, air, soil, renewable biomass and non-renewable (abiotic) materials (Schmidt-Bleek, 1999). On average, industrial products carry non-renewable rucksacks that are about 30 times their own weight. Only about 5 percent of non-renewable natural material disturbed in the ecosphere typically ends up in a technically useful form. In the case of a PC, the ecological (abiotic) rucksack weighs at least 200 kg per kg of product. For base materials (such as iron, plastic or copper), MI values allow the comparison of technical starting materials regarding their resource intensities and thus allow the computation of the rucksack of products, so long as the material compositions of these products are known. MI values (rucksack factors) for non-renewable resources of base materials are, for example: round wood = 1.2, glass = 2, plastics = 2–7, steel = 7, paper = 15, aluminium = 85, copper = 500, platinum = 500,000 (Schmidt-Bleek, 1999).

3).Biomimicry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems. The term biomimicry and biomimetics come from the Greek words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate. Other terms often used are bionics, bio-inspiration, and biognosis.

History;

*Humans have always looked to nature for inspiration to solve problems. One of the early examples of biomimicry was the study of birds to enable human flight. Although never successful in creating a "flying machine", Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was a keen observer of the anatomy and flight of birds, and made numerous notes and sketches on his observations as well as sketches of various "flying machines".The Wright Brothers, who finally did succeed in creating and flying the first airplane in 1903, also derived inspiration for their airplane from observations of pigeons in flight.