Ecological footprint of nations: Comparison of process analysis, and standard and hybrid multiregional input-output analysis

- The process analysis approach underestimates the footprint of international trade.
- The standard MRIO model with low product resolution is not suitable for national EF.
- The hybrid MRIO provides more accurate results than the standard MRIO method for EF.
- The hybrid MRIO might be improved for a better representation of derived products.

The ecological footprint (EF) is an indicator of human requirements on bio-productive land, an essential but limited resource, which use is related to environmental burden. In this article, we compare three methods for calculating national EF: a) the process analysis represented by Global Footprint Network (GFN) accounts; b) a standard environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model (EE-MRIOM); and c) a hybrid EE-MRIOM. The process analysis accounts for total domestic production and international trade of selected products. A standard EE-MRIOM further accounts for the upstream footprint of all traded products, but has a low resolution of relevant products in available datasets. The hybrid EE-MRIO method assessed here traces the primary biomass products in physical units through environmental extensions. Our results show that the standard MRIO model might introduce a significant error due to low resolution and poor data quality. The hybrid MRIO approach provides more accurate results than the standard MRIO method since it applies data from additional sources on a more detailed level. The process analysis underestimates the footprint of imports and exports as it ignores trade in services and other products as well as the upstream flows of products included in the analysis.