The biocapacity or biological capacity of an

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as

natural resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...

, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

from the atmosphere. Biocapacity is used together with

ecological footprint The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...

as a method of measuring

human impact on the environment Human impact on the environment (or anthropogenic impact) refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the need ...

. Biocapacity and ecological footprint are tools created by the

Global Footprint Network The Global Footprint Network was founded in 2003 and is an independent think tank originally based in the United States, Belgium and Switzerland. It was established as a charitable not-for-profit organization in each of those three countries. Its ...

, used in sustainability studies around the world. Biocapacity is expressed in terms of

global hectares The global hectare (gha) is a measurement unit for the ecological footprint of people or activities and the biocapacity of the Earth or its regions. One global hectare is the world's annual amount of biological production for human use and human wa ...

per person, thus is dependent on human population. A global hectare is an adjusted unit that represents the average biological productivity of all productive

hectares The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ab ...

on Earth in a given year (because not all hectares produce the same amount of

ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. Th ...

). Biocapacity is calculated fro
United Nations
population and land use data, and may be reported at various regional levels, such as a city, a country, or the world as a whole. For example, there were roughly 12.2 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water areas on this planet in 2016. Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 7.4 billion, gives a biocapacity for the Earth of 1.6 global hectares per person. These 1.6 global hectares includes the areas for wild species that compete with people for space.

Applications of biocapacity

An increase in global population can result in a decrease in biocapacity. This is usually due to the fact that the Earth’s resources have to be shared; therefore, there becomes little to supply the increasing demand of the increasing

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

. Currently, this issue can be resolved by

outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

. However, resources will run out due to the increasing demands and as a result a collapse of an ecosystem can be the consequence of such actions. When the

becomes greater than the biocapacity of the population, a biocapacity deficit is suspected. 'Global biocapacity' is a term sometimes used to describe the total capacity of an ecosystem to support various continuous activity and changes. When the

of a population exceeds the biocapacity of the environment it lives in, this is called an 'biocapacity deficit'. Such a deficit comes from three sources: overusing one's own ecosystems ("overshoot"), net imports, or use of the global commons. Latest data from

suggests that humanity was using an equivalence of 1.7 Earths in 2016.
The dominant factor of global ecological overshoot comes from carbon dioxide emissions stemming from fossil fuel burning. Additional stresses of

greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...

es,

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, and

ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the reduction in the pH value of the Earth’s ocean. Between 1751 and 2021, the average pH value of the ocean surface has decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14. The root cause of ocean acidification is carbon dioxid ...

can also aggravate the problem. In reference to the definition of biocapacity: 1.7 Earths means the

renewable resource A renewable resource, also known as a flow resource, is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion resource depletion, depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a ...

s are being liquidated because they are being consumed faster than the resources can regenerate. Therefore, it will take one year and eight months for the resources humanity uses in one year to be able to regenerate again, including absorbing all the waste we generate. So instead of taking one year's worth of resources per year, we are yearly consuming

resource Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their ...

s that ''should'' last us one year and eight months. In addition, if this matter becomes severe, an

ecological reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or o ...

will be set on areas to preserve their ecosystems. Awareness about our depleting resources include:

agricultural land Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other organism, forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous ...

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

resources and

rangeland Rangelands are grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts that are grazed by domestic livestock or wild animals. Types of rangelands include tallgrass and shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands and shrublands, woodlands, savannas ...

. Biocapacity used in correlation to ecological footprint can therefore suggest whether a specific population, region, country or part of a world is living in the means of their capital. Accordingly, the study of biocapacity and ecological footprint is known as the Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA). Biocapacity is also affected by the

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

used during the year. With new technologies emerging, it is not clear whether the technology in that year is good or bad but the technology does impact resource supply and demand, which in turn affects biocapacity. Hence what is considered “useful” can change from year to year (e.g. use of corn (maize) stover for

cellulosic ethanol Cellulosic ethanol is ethanol (ethyl alcohol) produced from cellulose (the stringy fiber of a plant) rather than from the plant's seeds or fruit. It can be produced from grasses, wood, algae, or other plants. It is generally discussed for use as a ...

production would result in corn stover becoming a useful material, and thus increase the biocapacity of maize cropland). Moreover, environmentalists have created ecological footprint calculators for a single person(s) to determine whether they are encompassing more than what is available for them in their population. Consequently, biocapacity results will be applied to their ecological footprint to determine how much they may contribute or take away from sustainable development. In general, biocapacity is the amount of resources available to people at a specific moment in time to a specific population (

supply Supply may refer to: *The amount of a resource that is available **Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers **Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission *Supply, as in confidenc ...

) and to differentiate between ecological footprint – which is the environmental demand of a regional ecosystem. Biocapacity is able to determine the human impacts on Earth. By determining productivity of land (i.e. the resources available for human consumption), biocapacity will be able to predict and perhaps examine the effects on the ecosystems closely based on collected results of human consumption. The biocapacity of an area is calculated by multiplying the actual physical area by the yield factor with the appropriate equivalence factor. Biocapacity is usually expressed in global hectares (gha). Since global hectares is able to convert human consumptions like food and water into a measurement, biocapacity can be applied to determine the

carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...

of the Earth.

References

Other resources

Videos
Finding Australia’s biocapacity
Dr Mathis Wackernagel explains biocapacity and how it’s calculated.
Ecological Balance Sheets for 180+ Countries

Peer-reviewed Articles
The importance of resource security for poverty eradication

Defying the Footprint Oracle: Implications of Country Resource Trends
Data
Results from the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts
{{Population country lists Human overpopulation Sustainability Population ecology

Applications of biocapacity

See also

References

Other resources