Population Reports' Q&As

Meeting the Urban Challenge

Impact on the Environment

What is an "ecological footprint"?

The ecological footprint represents the land area necessary to sustain consumption and waste disposal of a specific population (22, 99). The concept provides a measure of the impact that a population has on nature. In order to sustain the earth's ecosystem indefinitely, the ecological footprint of humankind should be only about 1.7 hectares of land per capita. At current levels of consumption, however, our ecological footprint averages about 2.3 hectares of land per capita. This level clearly cannot be sustained over the long term because it is about one-third larger than earth's natural capacity (147).

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