Definition of Ecological Footprint

Before you try to calculate the Ecological Footprint of a country, a city or an entire economy, you might want to understand how to calculate the Ecological Footprint of a person first. The mathematical system of calculating and estimating the Ecological Footprint of a person is the same as calculating the Ecological Footprint of a country except that for a country, there are a large number or more complicated factors that you will have to incorporate into your calculation and Ecological Footprint Analysis. So, to start off with, make sure you understand and know how to calculate the Ecological Footprint of an average person in an economy or country. After all a country or economy is made up of a large number of average persons. 

Before any Ecological Footprint calculations, you need to gather a list of all the consumption items and natural resources used by an average person because you will need to do an ecological calculation on each of them one by one. Use the equations in the Calculating Ecological Footprint to calculate the average annual consumption of each item and then the land needed to produce that item.

After you have calculated all the (and there should be many) different land requirements to produce each item that an average person uses or consumes then you can calculate the total Ecological Footprint of an average person per capital by adding up all the land needed. 

 

Once you have calculated the total Ecological Footprint of an average person within a country or economy, you can proceed to calculate the Ecological Footprint of that country, economy or city relatively easily.