Indutores de impacto ambiental nos municípios do Rio Grande do Sul: aplicação de um modelo global de probabilidade

It is a complex task to estimate sustainability indicators for municipalities when the absence of suitable data is taken into consideration. An alternative is to evaluate the drivers of environmental impact that can help to estimate impacts through an indirect approach. This paper applies a global probability model of drivers of environmental impact to identify such variables. The variable of environmental impact considered is the Ecological Footprint and the drivers are economics and demographics. Considering that the drivers can be obtained for each municipality it is possible to estimate the probability of impact for the municipalities of the state of Rio Grande do Sul using the coefficients of the global model. The results of this exercise point out to a regionalization of the pressure on the environment in the State. The findings also illustrate a methodology that could be applied in the absence of pure environmental data.