Ecological Footprint in the Aburrá Valley

Abstract

Written by a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín campus, this article presents the results of research on the ecological footprint of the Aburrá Valley Metropolitan Area, calculated using the Personal Planetoid concept and weighted across the city's six socioeconomic strata. The author documents that higher-income residents show an ecological footprint comparable to that of industrialized countries, while the predominant stratum matches the Colombian national average. The text establishes that the total ecological footprint of the metropolitan population and economy equals 47.4 times the area of the geographic valley, concluding that the city's ecological dependence on its regional surroundings reaches 99.99%, with an ecological deficit exceeding 98% in the emissions balance against local forest cover.