In this paper, we highlight the Agrarian Change Project, a multi-disciplinary research initiative, that applies detailed socio-ecological methodologies in multi-functional landscapes, and assess the subsequent implications for conservation, livelihoods and food security.
The climate has become opportune for farmers to take to conservation farming.Developing countries with pervasive poverty and expanding populations should spread a do-ecology methodology which can confer tangible ecological and economic benefits.
It is worth mentioning that there is a lack of analysis in the scientific literature related to applying Ecological Footprint methodologies to the Portuguese textile sector and to the proposal of specific mitigation alternatives to reduce energy consumption, at the same time, and it is covered by this paper.
The main objective of this paper is to apply Ecological Footprint methodology as a tool to analyze the Portuguese textile industry.
Most studies calculate available areas using a 'land balance' approach, that is, cultivable areas are identified depending on soil, climate and terrain characteristics, often based on the global agro-ecological zones methodology [ 18] or similar approaches [ 19], from which the area already cultivated or required in the future is subtracted.
As natural populations are invariably exposed to multiple stressors and genetic variability may change accordingly, it is essential to improve our knowledge on the effects of such scenarios in order to allow a correct incorporation in ecological risk assessment methodologies.
In order to analyze the sector and propose energy efficiency measures in these processes, this work suggests the use of the Ecological Footprint (EF) methodology as a tool to study the energy consumption.
For this reason, the Ecological Impact Assessment methodology can be used as a basis for our research, which consists of three stages.
In this sense, a sustainability assessment methodology, ecological footprint (EF), and environmental risk assessment (ERA), were combined for the first time to derive complementary criteria for the ecodesign of footwear.
Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodologies are uniquely positioned to collect these data, and are indeed being used in the field.
In this sense, an ecodesign tool integrating the criteria provided by three environmental evaluation methodologies, namely Ecological Footprint (EF), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA), has been constructed on the basis of fuzzy logic reasoning and features.
