Ecological Study of Transportation Footprint in Pardis Citizens

Increasing sustainability in cities as interface point between human and resource results in consolidation of this relationship. Measuring ecological footprint of surrounding cities and metropolises specifies the effects of human resources community on natural resources and with periodic reviews of these effects in the future, sources and fate will be determined. One of the most important objectives in managing the urban environment is maintaining city sustainability that reducing the degree of ecological footprint can be useful. Ecological footprint is an index of sustainability that assesses the amount of human consumption and the effect of the use on the environment. Several programs have been presented against population density in metropolis that establishment of new cities surrounding metropolis is one of important factors to attract overflow crowd. But, unfortunately, satellite cities have been dealt with significant infrastructure problems. This study aims to measure one of sustainable development indicators (ecological footprint) in Pardis city. The amount of ecological footprint in transport sector was obtained using component method and through calculating the three main products including gasoline, petrol and CNG. The amount of footprint equaled to 0.0042 hectares per person in the transport sector that can be compared to rates of per capita ecological footprint of the city that equals to 0.311. It can be concluded that Pardis city has acceptable ecological footprint in transport sector.

and as a result imposing harmful and irreparable effects on environment. The impacts are unable to be eliminated by city and its resource, and make instability in cities. Today, the best and the most ideal kind of growth is sustainable development when resources are kept that improve quality life of human in future. Ecological footprint is a method which can help to sustain development considerably and is founded to produce based on resource consumption and waste absorption in earth depending on required per capita area [1]. For the first time, Mathis Wacknagel and William Rees in British university of Columbia discovered the term and technique of ecological footprint in the book "our ecological footprint: reducing human impact on earth (1995)". From perspective of these two scholars, each human unit (including individual, city and country) influences on earth, since they apply natural production and services. Their ecological impact equals to natural amount that they have occupied for life stability [2]. Indicator of ecological footprint is an integrated method of consuming natural sources and absorbing wastes. Thus, this indicator has been recognized as potential index regularly to estimate outcomes of untapped use of natural resources in recent years [3]. Ecological footprint is computational means for ecological advantages and it also enables us to determine shortcomings and resources exactly. That means clearly in which region that human put pressure on natural resources. As a matter of fact, this indicator measures the use of individuals, organizations, cities, regions, countries or the entire human population from natural resources. On one hand, measuring ecological footprint of cities indicates pattern of urban consumptions over time and on the other hand, it helps urban managers to balance natural resources application by proper decision making and foster the relationship between human and environment. With regard to published statistics from Food and Agriculture Organization, the need of food will be increased 70% until 2050 that causes raising natural earth and ecosystems and as a result increasing human footprint considerably. According to issued statistics in 2050, human will require 3 earth planets to meet their needs. Furthermore, it will be predicted that population will reach about 9.6 billion people in 2050 and 11 billion people in 2100 that the biological capacity available per person will be reduced significantly [4]. This study measured ecological footprint of transport of Pardis city using component method which this footprint resulted from consuming three main products including gasoline, petrol and CNG. Moreover, this paper examines state and performance of this city in transport sector in connection with the backup area (metropolis of Tehran).
Living planet report was published in 2014 and based on measurement; living planet index has been decreased to 52% from 1970 to 2010. The ecological footprint amount was 18.1 billion hectares and the average ecological footprint per person was 2.6 hectares worldwide. Moreover, a biological capacity was 12 billion hectares or an average of 1.7 hectares per person worldwide that according to the population chart, this capacity reached from 3.2 billion to 7 billion. Thus, when biological capacity was increasing, population rising did not allow compensation for the human footprint on the earth [5]. Open Journal of Ecology According to Living planet report, global ecological footprint and average of ecological footprint per person were 18 billion hectares and 2.7 hectares respectively in 2012. But, global biological capacity and biological capacity per person were only 9.11 billion hectares and 1.8 hectares respectively which indicated that human consumed nearly 50% more than available saving and due to this consumption method, human require 1.5 planet to compensate it and earth planet needs 1 year and six months to restore consumed resources by human in a year [6].
In an analysis of ecological footprint in 1961-1999 period in three countries of Australia, Philippines and South Korea: comparison of common method with regional real method, impact of industrialization and energy consumption increase of three countries of Australia, Philippines and South Korea on amount of ecological footprint was examined: sum of ecological footprint in Philippines was 1.5 gha/cap that had not been changed since past 40 years and major energy contribution reached from 8% to 27% and per capita bio was decreased from 1.22 gha/cap to 0.52 gha/cap that its main reason was population increase and rapid growth of industry. Rapid growth of industry during 40 years in South Korea increased untapped use of natural resources and this made South Korea placed among countries with high ecological deficit that had nearly 5 times of its current biological capacity to meet its population needs. Contribution of fossil fuels footprint in this country was increased from 15% to 62% that revealed changing in consumption energy kind from wood fuel to fossil fuel, due to the fact that consumption contribution of wood fuels reached from 0.06 in Open Journal of Ecology gasoline and petrol fuels during 2006-2008 were 521,058, 476,767, 490,106 tons respectively and required lands equal to 7816, 7125 and 7352 hectares to absorb CO 2 , while area of green space in Shiraz in 2008 equaled to 1869 hectares, thus, it can be concluded that CO 2 gas emissions from gasoline and petrol fuels was 3.9 times against biological capacity in Shiraz [9].
In 2012, a survey titled as measuring ecological footprint of urban transport facilities; a modern approach for planning sustainable transport, Case Study of Urmia City was published in which the degree of sustainability of each method of urban transport in Urmia City was measured and evaluated and the results indicated that the most amount of footprint in this city related to Minibus with 0.00055 hectares and the least amount referred to motorcycle with 0.000016 hectares and through comparing this amount with global standards, it was specified that except bus, other transport means in Urmia city had more footprint amount than global standards [10].

Ecological Footprint Measurement Method
Ecological footprint is a sustainable index that evaluates the amount of human consumption and its impact of environment. Measuring ecological footprint shows that nowadays, on one hand, human apply natural resources at the expense of reducing capacity of earth to support future generations and on the other hand, human consumption and waste production are beyond capacity of creating new resources and absorbing waste by earth planet. As a result of this excessive consumption, human economy caused to destroy natural capital in earth planet [11]. The concepts of ecological footprint are placed on following hypotheses: 1) Food consumption, housing, transportation, infrastructure, consumer goods and services are measurable by population.
2) The amount of the population to be converted to the land (e.g., the land occupied by agriculture, the amount of logged land and the amount of land occupied by buildings) required for the production, growth, industry, transportation and disposal of waste, transportation, Infrastructure, consumer goods and consumer services.
3) The amount of land used to produce the resources consumed by the population and the disposal of waste generated is equal to the ecological footprint of that population [5].
The main stages of measuring the ecological footprint for a country, city or 7) The Realistic Categorization of Goals [8].
In Table 1, overall methods of measuring ecological footprint were introduced as well as advantages and accuracy of each method was compared. It is necessary to mention that all measurement concerning ecological footprint should be according to standards of ecological footprint that its last version was published in 2009.

Ecological Footprint Measurement of Pardis City in Transport Sector
This paper applied component method to measure ecological footprint in transport sector. Statistics for the petrol, CNG and gasoline sectors have been collected from the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company and the Tehran Province Gas Company. Also, for the first time in the field of measuring the footprint instead of the description, the formula is used to have a specific template for other studies. A method to measure footprint in national level for countries and is achieved through estimating import and export of a country.
This method has less accuracy compared to other two methods, since, details are not considered due to high volumes of data in national level.

Component method
This method is used to measure footprint in cities and urban regions and these measurement are conducted through estimating the amount of population consumption in consumer real states.
This method is one the most applicable techniques. The accuracy of this method is higher than synthesis method. Variety of consumer groups are changeable depending of studied subject and data volume.

Direct method
This method is applied to measure footprint in individuals, families and companies and correlates with direct consumer data of individuals.
This method has the highest accuracy among other two methods. Its accuracy is provided and calculated based on questionnaire and it depends on questionnaire accuracy. Lead-free gas releases 125,000 BTU (produced thermal energy). T hus, using this formula, the BTU gasoline is obtained per gallon. 10

Measurement of CNG Footprint
CNG consumption statistics are provided by the Tehran Provincial Gas Company, and for measuring footprint in this section, the CNG gas is converted to Accordingly, Pardis citizens need a land with 0.841 hectares to absorb carbon from daily consumption of CNG, and their ecological footprint in the CNG sector was 0.00001 hectares per person. Due to the fact that the number was very small, it can be ignored in the overall calculation of the transport footprint.

Discussion and Conclusions
The ecological footprint index conveyed clearly the relationship between human consumption and the effect that this consumption brings to the environment. This indicator facilitates decision making about how and how much resources are used, and identifies the effect of humans over different periods in different climates of the world. It addresses the relationship between biological capacity (natural power) and human footprint (human effect on the use of natural resources) [4]. The Pardis city is a satellite city and has new construction. According to ecological footprint standards, it is not possible to estimate the city's biological capacity (six classifications of land) and the city's biological capacity depends on the biological capacity of the mothers' own region, Tehran. For this purpose, in present paper, the per capita estimation method has been used for comparing the transport footprint as follows. According to the population of 46,900 people and the area of about 3600 hectares with surrounding area about 11,000 hectares, each person in Pardis city will receive about 0.311 hectares of land to meet the needs [6]. Based on statistics in Table 2, the ecological footprint of Pardis was proportional to the city's per capita consumption and fuel consumption in the city was acceptable.   Table 2 and fortunately, there is still no deficit in the transport sector. Here are some points to note. It is necessary to mention that: first, it can be concluded on the basis of calculations that Pardis city in the transport sector is capable of meeting the needs of its population and even accepting a larger population. This reduces the footprint amount on the motherland of the city, Tehran. On the other hand, because of the lack of complete facilities in the city and the lack of easy access by citizens to public transportation facilities and the lack of operation of all gas stations, the ecological footprint amount in the transportation sector is much less than the ability of the city. During the day, more than half of Pardis citizens travel to Tehran to work and cater to different needs. This causes a lot of refueling of the vehicles of this population from the gas station in the city of Tehran, which is impossible to estimate this statistic. Obviously, regardless of population access to facilities and daily emigration, the statistics of ecological footprint in mentioned sector were acceptable and proportionate to the population. One of the important reasons caused that a large ecological footprint is less than world standard, is the lack of a significant portion of residential complexes and the failure to launch all phases of Pardis city. It seems that if all the phases of Pardis city are exploited, footprint degree will undergo significant changes. Given the above cases, it can be stated that instead of being more concerned about population growth in cities, we need to focus more on promoting lifestyles and the pattern of eco-friendly consumption. The results of this study, as in other studies, showed once again that there is a direct relationship between the welfare level and the ecological footprint, which means that as welfare increases, the amount of the ecological footprint becomes larger and more disturbing. It is stressed that although the negative impact of population density on natural resources and the environment cannot be denied, it is now time to talk about traditional thinking about the impact of increasing population on environmental degradation and noble perspective of the impact of lifestyles on environmental degradation.