Ecological footprint for environmental sustainability in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

Ecological footprint (EF) is an indicator that accounts for human demand in the environment compared with the sizes of the bio-productive land and sea areas. This research was carried out to determine the EF for environmental sustainability in Ilorin Metropolis. Empirical surveying, which involved systematic random sample technique, was used to select residential households in each community for this investigation. The EF indicators, which include food, energy and waste consumptions, were determined empirically. The bio-capacity (BC), ecological stress and deficit were determined, from the land used as environmental sustainable areas in Ilorin, using Google Earth Mapping. The results revealed that energy has the highest EF of 44%, followed by waste and food with the footprint of 25% and 5%, respectively. A deficit of 38% was obtained, and this requires eight times the BC to balance the EF of the population. This implies that people are consuming more of the energy and generating more wastes than they consumed food.