Old Salt Lake | Virtual Museum
Part 2
Also see:
| Part 1 - Exploring an hypothesis
| Part 2 - Simple treatment
In the Malaga Cove rain catchment area, the "Ecological Footprint" of the current people occupying the place is effectively 223,000 acres of biological capacity. This being the result of quick assumptions about population and running the numbers for calculating footprint analysis obtained from a web site linked to below. One take is the people living in the Malaga Cove watershed use the global biological capacity equivalent area of the land between Palos Verdes, Pasadena and Santa Monica.
This presentation is a simple treatment exploring if it is even roughly possible for the people in the watershed today - for food and water - to consume simply the resources they can sustainably extract from their own rain catchment area.
Here is a Google Earth screenshot of the entire northern section of the Malaga Cove rain catchment area with markup added indicating perhaps some of the land uses changes the people living there may need to make in order to cope with the constraint of sustainably living off the catchment area they occupy.
Ecological Footprint: "A measure of how much biologically productive land and
water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it
consumes and to absorb the waste it generates using prevailing technology and resource
management practices. The Ecological Footprint is usually measured in global hectares.
Because trade is global, an individual or country's Footprint includes land or sea from
all over the world. Ecological Footprint is often referred to in short form as
Footprint (not footprint)."
For U.S. audiences, Footprint results are often presented in global acres (ga), rather
than global hectares
United States:
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT (global acres per capita) = 22.3
BIOCAPACITY (global acres per capita) = 10.9
10.9 - 22.3 = (11.3) ecological deficit.
Source: The website of these consultants: Global Footprint Network
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The Ecological Footprint of CA-LAN-138
The current local area population = 10,000(?) people.
10,000 x 22.3 (U.S. global acres of Ecological Footprint per capita) = 223,000
Simple Treatment
Initial Calculations:
Current (ga) per capita for self-sustaining planet = 2. Reduce the average Ecological
Footprint of each person in the local area of Malaga Canyon from 22 to 10 (ga).
22 - 10 = 12 (reduce per capita EF by more than half)
To do that - the entire current population in the local area of Malaga Canyon would
need to become 100% self-sufficient for water and food - using only the biological
resources in the local area. Is this even possible?
Primary Constraints of Available Water and Food in the Local Area
Groundwater Storage = 48,866,650 gallons (?)
Map of Available Groundwater Storage in Los Angeles County
The above image is from a figure in an aquifer storage calculation study. The figure on
the right shows the Malaga Canyon area has a major advantage. Note the purple dots on
the map at the Malaga Cove location. It shows Malaga Cove as having some of the most
concentrated and deep fresh water storage capabilities in LA County.
150 acre feet of water storage in aquifer in the local area. (?)
1 acre foot = 325,851 gallons
150 x 325,851 = 48,866,650 gallons of water stored in the area.
Annual Rain Runoff down the canyon = 325,000,000 Gallons (?) See:
Water Flow Analysis of Part 1 presentation.
Annual amount of fish sustainably harvested from the sea in the local area =
32,850,000 pounds (?)
Secondary Constraints of Available Water and Food in the Local Area
Amount of water in area available for annual personal use and food production:
300,000,000 gallons
Amount of water per person per day for personal use: 10 gallons (average American uses
150 gallons of water per person per day)
10 x 10,000 x 365 = 36,500,000 (approx.) gallons minimum annual personal
consumption
300,000,000 - 36,500,000 = 263,500,000 gallons annually available for food
production.
Amount of food a person needs per day: 3.8 pounds. (average American eats 4.5 pounds of
food per person per day)
Subtract 1 pound of food obtained from the sea for consumption per person per
day.
2.8 x10,000 x 365 = 10,220,000 annual pounds of fruit/vegetables minimum.
Number of gallons of water needed to grow 1 pound of fruit/vegetables = 35
gallons
35 x 10,220,000 = 3,577,700,000 gallons of water
3,577,700,000 - 263,500,000 = 3,314,200,000 (annual deficit of water)
1 acre can grow 30,000 pounds of vegetables?
200 x 30,000 = 6,000,000 pounds of food
263,500,000 / 35 = 7,528,571 pounds of food capable of growing with the available
water
(263,500,000) gallons annually available for food production divided by (35) gallons of
water needed to grow 1 pound of various fruit/vegetables = (7,528,571) pounds
6,000,000 / 365 = 16,438 pounds per day
16,438 / 2.8 = 5,870 people self-sustained for food
10,000 - 5870 = 4130 deficit
Implications of Primary and Secondary Constraints
1) | Land is the greater constraint, when initially determining how many of the 10,000 can be 100% self-sustained for water and food. |
2) | The initial Simple Treatment reducing the Ecological Footprint from 22 to 10 can not feed 4130 of the 10,000 people in the local area. |
3) | For all 10,000 people to be self-sustained requires further applying the unique human social / technical capabilities of the area to further increase/decrease all the various primary and secondary constraint values accordingly. |
4) | Further increasing/decreasing the constraint values accordingly probably means re-architecting (re-designing) all the human structures and energy flows in the local area to effectively reduce the per capita Ecological Footprint from 22 global acres (ga) to 6 or 7 instead of simply 10 or 11. |