Ecoscale
Environmental impact caused by a phenomenon, an accident or an activity can be estimated easily by multiplying the area of the impact, relative power of impact and the duration of impact as shown below. A weight factor can be used to distinguish between environmentally rich and important areas like the Amazon rain forests from less important areas like the Sahara desert.
Some order of magnitude estimates of environmental impacts are shown in the ecoscale below. The ecoscale approach combined with benchmarking is well suited to the EIA process.
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Click the image to get a bigger picture of the Ecoscale.
Click here to find the calculations on the issues shown on the scale: www.ecobureaucracy.eu
Katso tästä asioihin liittyyvät suuruusluokkalaskelmat suomeksi: www.ymparistovalta.net
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Climate change is used here as an example to illustrate the ecoscale approach. Information from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been used with the assumption that it is correct. The surface area of the earth is first transferred to equivalent area.
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Area |
Importance coefficient |
Equivalent area |
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Environmentally rich land |
100 Mkm² |
3,0 |
300 Mkm² |
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Deserts etc. |
50 Mkm² |
0,5 |
25 Mkm² |
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Continental shelf |
50 Mkm² |
1,5 |
75 Mkm² |
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Deep oceans |
300 Mkm² |
0,33 |
100 Mkm² |
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500 Mkm² |
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500 Mkm² eq. |
If the change in the earth’s average temperature is small (2°C), environmental impacts remain limited. A major change in temperature (5°C) causes cumulative effects like famines, social anarchy, large migrations of peoples, all-out wars and collapses of ecosystems.
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Equivalent area |
Relative change |
Change in equivalent area |
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Environmentally rich land |
300 Mkm² |
-0,02... -0,4 |
-6,0... -120 Mkm² |
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Deserts ect. |
25 Mkm² |
+/- 0,0 |
+/- 0,0 |
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Continental shelf |
75 Mkm² |
-0,02... -0,2 |
-1,5... -15 Mkm² |
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Deep oceans |
100 Mkm² |
-0,01... -0,1 |
-1,0... -10 Mkm² |
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500 Mkm² |
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-8,5... 145 Mkm² eq. |
A minor change in temperature (2 °C) is assumed to develop in 100 years and the ecosystem is supposed to recover in another 100 years. The environmental impact in ecoscale is estimated to be
–8.5 Mkm² eq. x 0.5 x 200 a = -850 Mkm² eq. x a
A major change in temperature (5 °C) causes long term environmental damage. The ecosystem could require some 2000 years to recover into a state that would more or less resemble its original form.
The effect is about –145 Mkm² eq. x 0.5 x 2000 a -/ 145 000 Mkm² eq. x a
In the ecoscale graph, the magnitude of the greenhouse effect is assumed to be –5000 Mkm² eq. x a which corresponds to a temperature increase by 3 °C. The development of carbon dioxide emissions (1 e) causing this temperature increase is shown below, along with the reference scenario (2 e) with sharp and immediate cuts in emissions resulting in a negligible environmental impact.
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