ABSTRACT
The ecological footprint measures how much of the biosphere’s annual regenerative capacity is required to renew the natural resources used by a defined population in a given year. Ecological footprint analysis (EFA) compares the footprint with biocapacity. Despite increasing popularity of EFA, definitional, theoretical, and methodological issues hinder more widespread scientific acceptance and use in policy settings. Of particular concern are how EFA is defined and what it actually measures, exclusion of open oceans and less productive lands from biocapacity accounts,
CONTENTS
Definitions and Background ........................................................................... 58 The Need for Change to Ecological Footprint Analysis ............................. 60 The Standard Approach and Core Critiques ................................................ 62
Salient Aspects of the Standard Approach .............................................. 63 Core Critiques .............................................................................................. 65
An EFA Approach Based on Net Primary Productivity ............................. 65 Including the Entire Surface of the Earth in Biocapacity ....................... 66 Reserving Habitat for Other Species ........................................................ 67 Changing Assumptions about Carbon Sequestration............................ 69
Using NPP as the Basis for New Equivalence Factors ................................ 71 Changes to the EFA Template .................................................................... 72
Application of EF-NPP to the Footprint of Nations .................................... 73 Global 2001 Snapshot .................................................................................. 73 Global Trends over Time ............................................................................ 75 Cross-Sectional Regression Analysis ........................................................ 77
Concluding Thoughts and Future Refinements .......................................... 87 Abbreviations .................................................................................................. 90 Endnotes ............................................................................................................ 90 References .......................................................................................................... 91
failure to allocate space for other species, use of agricultural productivity potential as the basis for equivalence factors, how the global carbon budget is allocated, and failure to capture unsustainable use of aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems.
