The biocapacity or biological capacity of an

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

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. ...

, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

from the atmosphere. Biocapacity is used together with

ecological footprint The ecological footprint measures human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies. It tracks human demand on nature through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biolo ...

as a method of measuring

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

. Biocapacity and ecological footprint are tools created by the Global Footprint Network, used in sustainability studies around the world. Biocapacity is expressed in terms of global hectares 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), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. A ...

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

ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the various benefits that humans derive from Ecosystem, ecosystems. The interconnected Biotic_material, living and Abiotic, non-living components of the natural environment offer benefits such as pollination of crops, clean ...

). 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 because the Earth's resources have to be shared; therefore, there becomes little to supply the increasing demand of the increasing

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

. Currently, this issue can be resolved by

outsourcing Outsourcing is a business practice in which companies use external providers to carry out business processes that would otherwise be handled internally. Outsourcing sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another ...

. 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 Global Footprint Network 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 Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of planets such as the Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. T ...

es,

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

, and

ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean. Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of ...

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 depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of t ...

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 Technology, technologically accessible, Economics, economically feasible and Culture, culturally Sustainability, sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and want ...

s that ''should'' last us one year and eight months. In addition, if this matter becomes severe, an ecological reserve 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 ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

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, savanna ...

. 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 Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

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 or supplies 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 ...

) 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 ecosystem 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 the ...

of the Earth. Likewise, because an economy is tied to various production factors such as natural resources, biocapacity can also be applied to determine

human capital Human capital or human assets is a concept used by economists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a subs ...

References

Other resources

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