Chapter 4
Case Study – Methods
Abstract This chapter employs a case study in an investigation of Costa Rica’s
national Ecological Footprint and biocapacity. Sampling farmers in the Alexander
Skutch Biological Corridor as the study area, this chapter relays the methods used,
including surveys based on the Footprint Calculator with follow-up interviews. In
this way, it is possible to discern the regional environmental performance of these
farmers and learn from them (at household–regional levels) how to improve
their environmental performance. This contributes to an understanding of crossscalar variations in the environmental performance of the Ecological Footprint and
biocapacity. It also allows for a critical approach to the Footprint Calculator used to
survey at these scales based on the online survey.
Keywords Peasant farmers · ‘campesinos’ · Footprint Calculator · Farmers
surveys · Household · Regional scale · Aggregation · Alexander Skutch Biological
Corridor · Costa Rica
This chapter employs a case study in an investigation of Costa Rica’s national
Ecological Footprint and biocapacity. Sampling farmers in the Alexander Skutch
Biological Corridor as the study area, this chapter relays the methods used in the
study, including surveys based on the Footprint Calculator with follow-up interviews. In this way, it is possible to discern the regional environmental performance
of these farmers and learn from them (at household–regional level) how to improve
the environmental performance in a biological corridor. This contributes to an
understanding of cross-scalar variations in environmental performance on the basis
of the Ecological Footprint in particular. It also allows for a critical approach to the
Footprint Calculator used to survey at these scales. Although the Footprint Calculator outputs information about consumption (and the Ecological Footprint), it is
lacking details about production (biocapacity). Therefore, the function that
biocapacity serves to contextualise the Ecological Footprint is missing and, thus, it
is not possible to discern ecological overshoot and assess environmental sustainability to the degree possible with the National Footprint Accounts – at country level.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. J. Thornbush, The Ecological Footprint as a Sustainability Metric,
SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62666-2_4
51
Case Study – Methods
Abstract This chapter employs a case study in an investigation of Costa Rica’s
national Ecological Footprint and biocapacity. Sampling farmers in the Alexander
Skutch Biological Corridor as the study area, this chapter relays the methods used,
including surveys based on the Footprint Calculator with follow-up interviews. In
this way, it is possible to discern the regional environmental performance of these
farmers and learn from them (at household–regional levels) how to improve
their environmental performance. This contributes to an understanding of crossscalar variations in the environmental performance of the Ecological Footprint and
biocapacity. It also allows for a critical approach to the Footprint Calculator used to
survey at these scales based on the online survey.
Keywords Peasant farmers · ‘campesinos’ · Footprint Calculator · Farmers
surveys · Household · Regional scale · Aggregation · Alexander Skutch Biological
Corridor · Costa Rica
This chapter employs a case study in an investigation of Costa Rica’s national
Ecological Footprint and biocapacity. Sampling farmers in the Alexander Skutch
Biological Corridor as the study area, this chapter relays the methods used in the
study, including surveys based on the Footprint Calculator with follow-up interviews. In this way, it is possible to discern the regional environmental performance
of these farmers and learn from them (at household–regional level) how to improve
the environmental performance in a biological corridor. This contributes to an
understanding of cross-scalar variations in environmental performance on the basis
of the Ecological Footprint in particular. It also allows for a critical approach to the
Footprint Calculator used to survey at these scales. Although the Footprint Calculator outputs information about consumption (and the Ecological Footprint), it is
lacking details about production (biocapacity). Therefore, the function that
biocapacity serves to contextualise the Ecological Footprint is missing and, thus, it
is not possible to discern ecological overshoot and assess environmental sustainability to the degree possible with the National Footprint Accounts – at country level.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. J. Thornbush, The Ecological Footprint as a Sustainability Metric,
SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62666-2_4
51