Human population footprint may be growing more slowly
The human footprint continues to expand, with three quarters of earth's land surface now experiencing measurable pressures from buildings, roads, crops, pastures and other human structures and activities, according to a new report. Those pressures are building most intensely in the few remaining wild areas of high biodiversity, it notes. But the report also finds an encouraging trend: in recent years, growth in the footprint has lagged far behind population and economic growth. From 1993 to 2009, population grew 23 percent, and the global economy by 153 percent–but human influence on land went up only 9 percent. The mismatch suggests that increasing urbanization and more sustainable use of resources may be buying time for the rapidly expanding human biome, even as overall consumption of resources hits new heights. The report appears this week in the journal Nature Communications.