Land Use Graph (IMAGE)
Caption
Princeton researchers developed a tool for examining consumption-based land footprints and found that when direct land-use such as housing is combined with indirect land-use through the consumption of goods and services, each of our imprints on the land could be significantly higher than most people are aware. They identified five individual actions (at left) that could reduce people's indirect land footprint (orange). The percentages indicate the decrease in an individual's indirect footprint by square-foot based on the action taken. The researchers also evaluated how a person's direct land-use (blue) is affected by their housing decisions, including moving into a multi-family dwelling, living in the heart of the nearest city, and relocating from a median-density metro area such as Minneapolis-Saint Paul (MSP) to a more densely populated area such as New York City. Moving to a more urban area reduced a person's total footprint due to the greater availability of goods and services in a city.
Credit
Courtesy of Lin Zeng, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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