Humanity's Footprint 1961-2002

Ecological Footprint accounts estimate how many Earths were needed to meet the resource requirements of humanity for each year since 1961, when complete UN statistics became available. Resource demand (Ecological Footprint) for the world as a whole is the product of population times per capita consumption, and reflects both the level of consumption and the efficiency with which resources are turned into consumption products. Resource supply (biocapacity) varies each year with ecosystem management, agricultural practices (such as fertilizer use and irrigation), ecosystem degradation, and weather.
 
This global assessment shows how the size of the human enterprise compared to the biosphere, and to what extent humanity is in ecological overshoot. Overshoot is possible in the short-term because humanity can liquidate its ecological capital rather than living off annual yields.
 

 
Figure 1 shows the ratio between the world's demand and the world's biocapacity in each year, and how this ratio has changed over time. Expressed in terms of "number of planets," the biocapacity of the Earth is always 1 (represented by the horizontal blue line). This graph shows how humanity has moved from using, in net terms, about half the planet's biocapacity in 1961 to over 1.2 times the biocapacity of the Earth in 2002. The global ecological deficit of 0.2 Earths is equal to the globe's ecological overshoot.
 

 
Figure 2 tracks, in absolute terms, the world's average per person Ecological Footprint and per person biocapacity over a 40-year period.
 

Figure 3 shows the components of the world's average per person Ecological Footprint.
 
 

Footprint trends in eight countries and the world show how Ecological Footprints have developed at the national level over the last 40 years. All figures are based on data from the 2005 Edition of the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts.   •  World •  China •  France •  India •  Korea, DPR (North) •  Korea, Rep. (South) •  Mexico •  Netherlands •  Philippines