Ecological Footprint: Contents

A   Ecological Footprint, Biocapacity & Ecodeficit
The Ecological Footprint, hosted by Redefining Progress, is by far the most successful example of an environmental index, thanks its adoption by numerous NGOs. The top aggregate called "Ecodeficit" is the difference between Biocapacity (how much can a country sustain?) and Footprint (how much does it actually use?). Not surprisingly, most OECD states are at the lower end of the scale.

B   Ecological Footprint Latin America
The sub-index Ecological Footprint, presented here for Latin-American countries only. Haiti, poorest country of the Western hemisphere, has the lowest Footprint, Chile the highest.

C   Latin America vs. Rest of the World
The sub-index Ecological Footprint, again presented for Latin-American countries, but "embedded" into the global context. In the Dashboard, pressing F12 toggles between "embedded" and "exclusive" views, answering the questions "How does my country perform a) relative to all countries of the World and b) relative to others in (e.g.) the OECD group?".

D   Biocapacity in Europe
Biocapacity, presented as a map of Europe in "embedded" mode, i.e. relative to the rest of the World. Denmark and Norway have the highest Biocapacity, while Slovenia apparently is in the most critical position.

E   Ecological Footprint: Africa
Africa's Footprint is overall rather low - green is the prevailing colour, and tiny Burundi in the heart of Sub-Saharan Africa leads the classification. "exAbsV" means "exclusive mode, Absolute Valuation" - only African states are compared to each other, and there is no correction for per capita income. So somebody has to be the worst - South Africa and Gabon have the highest Footprints in Africa.

F   Biocapacity in Asia
This map of Asia shows the Biocapacity: lowest value for densely populated Singapore, highest for Papua New Guinea. Ukraine in the upper left corner fairs well, too.

G   Ecodeficit North Ameria
The three NAFTA states in "embedded" mode, i.e. compared against the Rest of the World. Canada clearly has an advantage, due to its low population density.

H   Responsibility in OECD
An example of a single indicator, "Responsibility", for the OECD states (embedded mode, i.e. against the Rest of the World)

I   Linkage Analysis
Oops - a bug in the software? Not really - one special feature of this index is that indicators, such as "Pasture and Wooded Area", can appear both in the Footprint and Biocapacity sub-indices - and, of course, they are often negatively correlated...

J   Oceania
We are still struggling with the maps - my excuses to the Australians! Providing lots of data and maps in a ZIP archive of less than half a megabyte is almost impossible - but we are used to make miracles come true!
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