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Water-related problems are mostly caused by water imbalances between supply and demand. This study adopts the ecological footprint method to conduct an empirical study on the sustainable utilization of water resources in Japan. According to the basic principles and calculation methods of water ecological footprint (WEF), the characteristics of Japan’s water ecological footprint were investigated from the time and space dimensions, and a comparative analysis was made with the water ecological footprint of China. The results show that: from 1980 to 2020, the total water ecological footprint in Japan showed a downward trend in both the traditional account and pollutant account, and its spatial pattern was characterized by the relation that the higher the urbanization rate, the larger the water ecological footprint. In terms of water ecological footprint efficiency, Japan’s agricultural water ecological footprint efficiency was the lowest, and the domestic water ecological footprint efficiency was the highest. The water resources policies and measures that Japan and other developing countries should take to ensure the sustainability of water resources were analyzed separately.

【Background and Objective】Ecological products, which are natural elements maintaining ecological security and providing a healthy environment, have both natural and humanistic values. However, the realization of their value is still imperfect, with issues like unclear property rights and inadequate financial support. Transforming ecological values into economic benefits is essential. Ecological compensation accounting helps clarify compensation standards and scope, but current policies face challenges like vague spatial scope and overly high compensation standards based on ecosystem service values. This study aims to assess the value of ecological products and the ecological compensation quota in Shaanxi Province, providing a reference for improving the regional ecological product value realization and compensation system.【Method】This study evaluates the value of ecological products in Shaanxi Province based on the Technical Guideline on Gross Ecosystem Product. It analyzes the ‘consumption-output’ of ecological resources in different cities using ecological footprint and carrying capacity models. The ecological compensation limit is then calculated by combining the ecological product value and resource utilization in different cities.【Result】In 2020, the total value of ecological products in Shaanxi Province was 2 154.694 billion yuan, with material production at 405.661 billion yuan, regulation services at 1 227.833 billion yuan, and cultural services at 521.20 billion yuan. The highest values were found in Hanzhong (312.474 billion yuan) and Yan’an (304.552 billion yuan). From a land-use perspective, forest, grassland, and water were in ecological surplus, while farmland, construction, and fossil energy land were in deficit. Ecologically, only Ankang and Shangluo showed surplus, while other regions had deficits. Based on the ecological protection and economic development balance, regions like Xi’an, Xianyang, and Yulin need to pay ecological compensation (e.g., 2 011.07 billion yuan for Xi’an), while areas such as Yan’an and Hanzhong are entitled to compensation. 【Conclusion】Combining ecological footprint, carrying capacity, and product values allows for a more rational and accurate calculation of ecological compensation at both provincial and municipal levels, improving the efficiency of ecological compensation systems.

In recent years, financial development, trade policies, and energy performance have attracted attention due to their behavior on environmental quality. Therefore, the current study examines the impact of financial development, trade openness, primary and renewable energy utilization, and economic growth on the ecological footprint in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries from 1990 to 2017. This article progresses the proficiency of financial development by utilizing the comprehensive and multidimensional index of financial sector development based on their depth, access, and efficiency of their financial institutions and markets. In order to estimate the robust results, this study employed the cross-sectional dependency tests that allow the second-generation unit root, Westerlund cointegration, augmented mean group (AMG), error correction model (ECM), and Dumitrescu–Hurlin (D-H) panel non-causality tests. The results revealed a very weak effect of financial development in a panel of SAARC countries, while country-specific results reveal that financial development significantly enhances the pollution level in the case of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. However, it improves the environmental quality in Nepal. Furthermore, trade openness only improves the environmental quality in the case of Nepal. Additionally, the findings explore that primary energy consumption enhances the ecological footprint in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and reduces in case of Bhutan. On the contrary, renewable energy consumption significantly improves the environmental quality in all countries except Bangladesh. Finally, consistent with these findings, a number of suitable policy implications are expressed in the angle of SAARC economies.

Ecological Footprint accounting quantifies the supply and demand of Earth’s biocapacity. The National Footprint Accounts (NFA) are the most widely used Ecological Footprint (EF) dataset, and provide results for most countries and the world from 1961 to 2014, based primarily on publicly available UN datasets. Here, we review the evolution of the NFA, describe and quantify the effects of improvements that have been implemented into the accounts since the 2012 edition, and review the latest global trends. Comparing results over six editions of NFAs, we find that time-series trends in world results remain stable, and that the world Ecological Footprint for the latest common year (2008) has increased six percent after four major accounting improvements and more than thirty minor improvements. The latest results from the NFA 2018 Edition for the year 2014 indicate that humanity’s Ecological Footprint is 1.7 Earths, and that global ecological overshoot continues to grow. While improved management practices and increased agricultural yields have assisted in a steady increase of Earth’s biocapacity since 1961, humanity’s Ecological Footprint continues to increase at a faster pace than global biocapacity, particularly in Asia, where the total and per capita Ecological Footprint are increasing faster than all other regions.

Motivated by the growing levelof informal economy in emerging economies, this study examines the role of the informal economy in the ecological footprint for the case of Africa. The relationship between official economy, trade openness, governance indicator, financial development, and urbanization on ecological footprint is also investigated. Applying data from 1991 to 2017, this empiric utilizes panel estimation procedures to account for cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity in panel data. The results establish the presence of cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity across countries in Africa. Furthermore, long-run cointegration is confirmed using Westerlund panel cointegration. Driscoll-Kraay’s (DK) estimation technique shows that informal economy, official economy, governance, financial development, and urbanization have significant positive impacts on ecological footprint, implying that they contribute to environmental degradation. However, trade openness has a negative and significant effect on ecological footprint, improving environmental quality. Similarly, the Dumitrescu-Hurlin (DH) Granger causality test reveals a two-way relationship between the informal economy and ecological footprint and formal economy and ecological footprint. However, the study finds a one-way connection from urbanization and financial development to ecological footprint and from ecological footprint to governance indicators and trade openness. The implications of the findings for a sustainable environment are discussed.

This study focuses to investigate the relationship between globalization and the ecological footprint for Malaysia from 1971 to 2014. The results of the Bayer and Hanck cointegration test and the ARDL bound test show the existence of cointegration among variables. The findings disclose that globalization is not a significant determinant of the ecological footprint; however, it significantly increases the ecological carbon footprint. Energy consumption and economic growth stimulate the ecological footprint and carbon footprint in Malaysia. Population density reduces the ecological footprint and carbon footprint. Further, financial development mitigates the ecological footprint. The causality results disclose the feedback hypothesis between energy consumption and economic growth in the long run and short run.

This study aims to investigate the effect of economic globalization and technological changes on the environmental degradation of the South Asian countries over the time span of 1975–2017. Westerlund (Oxf Bull Econ Stat 69:709–748, 2007 ) cointegration test is employed to estimate the presence of long-run relationship between globalization, technological changes, and environmental degradation. To determine the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, this study employs panel autoregressive distributional lag (ARDL) model. Empirical findings of this study yield the inverted U-shaped association between globalization, technological changes, and environmental degradation which validate that EKC holds in the South Asian countries. The results indicate that the measures of globalization such as FDI, trade openness, and KOF index have positive and statistically significant effect on ecological footprint. However, technological changes measured as patents registered by residents have an insignificant impact on environmental quality. This study infers that the globalization has increased environmental degradation through unsustainable economic development in South Asian countries. These countries should shift to renewable energy resources to protect the environment and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

The Southeast Asian countries have experienced significant degrees of economic growth over the years but have not managed to safeguard their environmental attributes in tandem. As a result, the aggravation of the environmental indicators across this region casts a shadow of doubt on the sustainability of the economic growth achievements of the Southeast Asian countries. Against this milieu, this study specifically explores the influence of renewable electricity generation capacity, technological innovation, financial development, and economic growth on the ecological footprints in five Southeast Asian countries namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam during the period 1985–2016. One of the major novelties of this study is in terms of its approach to assess the renewable energy use-ecological footprint nexus using the renewable electricity generation capacity as an indicator of renewable energy use in the selected Southeast Asian nations. The econometric analysis involves methods that are robust to handling cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity issues in the data. Accordingly, the recently developed Cross-sectional Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag estimator is used to predict the short- and long-run impacts on ecological footprints. The major findings suggest that higher renewable electricity generation capacity and technological innovation reduce ecological footprints, while higher financial development and economic growth increase the ecological footprints. Therefore, these findings imply that in forthcoming years, the selected Southeast Asian countries will need to tackle the environmental adversities by enhancing their renewable electricity generation capacities, increasing investment in technological development, greening the financial sector, and adopting environmentally-friendly growth policies. Hence, the implementation of relevant policies, in this regard, can be expected to ensure complementarity between economic growth and environmental welfare across Southeast Asia.

Previous research has demonstrated that the wealthy harm the environment to a much greater extent than those with lesser means. According to recent estimates, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population emit 50% more CO2 than the bottom half of the income distribution. The reason for this inequality is clear: affluence boosts consumption, which in turn increases the ecological footprint. Although the phenomenon seems intuitive, little is known as to whether the layperson notices it. The current study assesses the extent to which individuals recognize or fail to notice such massive ecological footprint inequality and why misperceptions may arise. Across four preregistered studies (N = 1,188) conducted in a highly unequal socio-economic environment (Brazil), we show that people often fail to accurately perceive the meaningful ecological footprint inequality that surrounds them. These misperceptions are explained by people’s (a) failure to properly incorporate the impact of income-based differences in consumption in their ecological footprint assessments and (b) tendency to associate wealth with superior environmental education, greater resources to act sustainably, and better local infrastructure (e.g., cleaner paved streets and proper waste collection). Emphasizing the lack of infrastructure in deprived neighborhoods further exacerbates the misperceptions, whereas highlighting key differences in consumption habits across the socio-economic spectrum increases accuracy. This research, thus, identifies the factors that magnify existing misperceptions in ecological footprint inequality and provides avenues for policymakers to reduce such mistakes.

Mitigation of environmental deterioration along the economic growth stream has become a critically important policy agenda among governments across the globe. Thus, the contemporary growth policies are ought to be aligned with the environmental sustainability targets as well. Against this backdrop, this paper aimed to evaluate the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis using carbon and total ecological footprints to quantify environmental quality in the context of five South Asian economies: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Moreover, the EKC hypothesis analysis is precisely focused on the role of promoting renewable energy use for mitigating the environmental adversities in South Asia. Using annual data from 1995 to 2015 and controlling for cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity issues, the results confirmed the validity of the EKC hypothesis for the panel of the selected South Asian nations. Besides, enhancing the levels of renewable energy consumption and renewable electricity outputs were found to be pertinent in diminishing the carbon and ecological footprints. Moreover, the country-specific analysis led to statistical validation of the EKC hypothesis for Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka but not for Pakistan. However, enhancing the overall use of renewable energy was unanimously associated with environmental betterment in all five South Asian nations. Hence, the results implicate that economic growth is both the short-run cause and the long-run solution to the environmental adversities within South Asia. Besides, augmenting renewable energy into the national energy-mixes is ideal for safeguarding environmental well-being in South Asia.