Global Ecological Degradation Research Articles

The Long-Term Effects of Barren Land Afforestation on Plant Productivity, Soil Fertility, and Soil Moisture in China: A Meta-Analysis.

As global ecological degradation intensifies, the long-term impacts of afforestation on productivity and soil fertility in barren lands have become critical in improving global ecological security and productivity. Through meta-analysis, this study integrates data from 109 barren land afforestation sites across China, aiming to comprehensively analyze the effects on plant productivity and soil fertility while identifying the key environmental drivers of these changes. We found that afforestation consistently enhances plant productivity across 60 years. However, soil fertility and moisture initially surged significantly after afforestation but gradually declined after the first decade, indicating the limited long-term benefits. Climatic factors, namely precipitation and humidity index, are crucial in enhancing plant productivity, while geographic factors, specifically lower elevations and gentler slopes, are associated with greater increases in soil fertility. Elevation and slope are two key factors that influence soil moisture after afforestation. These findings highlight the need for ongoing soil management and ecological maintenance in afforestation projects to sustain the soil fertility benefits. Our study provides a robust scientific foundation for afforestation strategies aimed at barren land restoration and offers valuable insights for policy formulation in barren land afforestation.

Climate policies and legislation for renewable energy transition: The roles of financial sector and political institutions

Given the urgent need to address global ecological degradation and its accelerating impacts, countries worldwide are increasingly prioritizing the acceleration of the transition to renewable energy sources. In this quest for green development, economies are motivated to enact enabling policies and supportive legislation to facilitate an expedited transition. Within this context, the present study seeks to investigate the roles of financial development and political institutions––particularly corruption control, civil society participation, and democracy––as conditional factors that support clean energy policies and climate change legislation (laws and regulations) in accelerating renewable energy transition in the top-10 polluting economies between 1996 and 2019. By applying the augmented mean group technique, the empirical findings indicate that clean energy policies and climate change laws and regulations alone are ineffective in driving the transition to renewable energy. However, financial development and certain political institutions––such as corruption control, civil society participation, and democracy––have been identified as key contributors to this transition. The effectiveness of clean energy policies in accelerating the renewable energy transition depends on a well-developed financial sector to implement and enforce these policies effectively. Enacting clean energy policies, along with environmental laws and regulations, while supported by a well-developed financial sector, accelerates the transition to renewable energy. Moreover, enacting such policies and laws, coupled with strong corruption control and higher active civil society participation, creates an environment that enables the transition to renewable energy.

Spatial exploration of rural capital contributing to quality of life and urban-to-rural migration decisions: a case study of Hokuto City, Japan

Globally, urbanization constitutes one of the major underlying drivers of global ecological degradation. Hence, deurbanization, i.e., demographic shift from urban to distant rural areas in a way that increases quality of life (QoL), can be one of the key pathways to address this global challenge. In this study, we investigated the contribution of nature and other types of rural capital to QoL and to people’s decision to migrate from urban to rural areas by studying residents in Hokuto City, a popular urban-to-rural migration destination in Japan. An integrated analysis of the 414 responses to a questionnaire survey and open and commercial geospatial datasets representing natural, built, human, cultural, and financial capital revealed the contributions of specific elements of rural capital to people’s QoL. These included natural capital (farmland, symbolic natural sites, mountain peak view, lower temperature, and tranquility), built capital (highways, railway stations, shops, and restaurants), and financial capital (employment). Many of these are related to the reasons that migrants, including return and one-way migrants, chose their present home location in Hokuto City, indicating their intention to increase QoL by migration. Particularly, one-way migrant homes were located predominantly on higher up mountain slopes with lower temperatures, higher forest cover, near natural parks, and symbolic natural sites, and yet with easier access to railway stations and employment. These results provide a valuable evidence base for rural spatial planning for increased QoL and attracting migrants that considers ecological–social feedbacks, and hence supports deurbanization.

Research on Discharge Permit Allocation in Lushui River Based on Environmental GINI Coefficient

Water pollution is the main cause of global ecological degradation and seriously affects people’s water supply. In order to respond to the water environmental protection policy and provide management departments with a basis for refining water quality, this paper uses the environmental Gini coefficient (EGC) method based on four indicators, such as water environmental capacity, population, land area, and gross domestic production (GDP), to represent social, economic, and environmental factors, respectively. After the optimization, for COD, the EGC based on the land area was 0.30, EGC based on population was 0.21, EGC based on environment capacity was 0.02, and the EGC based on GDP was 0.45, and the sum of EGC was 0.962. From this result, we can observe that the change in the Gini coefficient of each indicator is not very considerable. Hence, the most significant change in the Gini coefficient was that of GDP, with a higher rate than the other criteria. Then, the COD, AND, and TP discharge allocation models were constructed to obtain the total allocated discharge permit for the Lushui Basin. The results show that the total discharge permit allocations of COD, AN, and TP for the Lushui Basin are 51,483.304, 843.119, and 340.926 tons/year, respectively. Based on GIS spatial analysis technology, the distribution of unfair factors that cause pollution inequity is investigated. Finally, reduction measures were proposed to implement environmental supervision and improve water environmental management.

A reverse distribution between synergistic effect and economic development: An analysis from industrial SO2 decoupling and CO2 decoupling

Under the dual pressure of global ecological degradation and economic downturn, an important task for emerging industrialized countries is to balance the connection between the economy and the environment. To achieve CO2 reduction and pollution reduction in China, the trend and causes of decoupling both CO2 and SO2 from economic growth were evaluated. Then, the synergistic effect of two decoupling indices was investigated by spatial econometric model, i.e., Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR). The analysis results show that: (1) Per capita GDP and energy intensity were the main positive contribution and negative contribution, severally. (2) There have been variations within the ranking of the sensitivity of two decoupling indices to each influencing factor. Emission coefficients, energy mix and energy intensity are highly sensitive in most regions. For decoupling index of CO2, the sensitivity was higher in eastern regions, however, the sensitivity of decoupling index of SO2 was the contrary. (3) There was spatial and temporal heterogeneity within the synergistic effect. The effect in the western region is higher than that in the eastern region, different from economic development, especially in Xinjiang province, where increasing the decoupling effort of CO2 by 1 unit can reduce the decoupling index of SO2 by 0.50 in 2018. (4) According to the trend of the synergistic effect, six sectors could be defined, where sector “e” should be the focus of attention, with an average coefficient of −0.33. After 2016, the effect in sector “d”, sector “e” and sector “f” tends to increase. The findings not only facilitate the present literature on synergistic reduction of environmental pollution, but also be of interest to policy-makers in emerging industrialized countries.

Environmental Personhood as a Tool to Protect Nature

The escalating global ecological degradation underlines the continued importance of the need of effective nature protection. In recent years a new concept– “environmental personhood” was developed. The article analyses the concept and asks the question if it can help with the efficiency of protecting the nature. It is the attempt to transfer the essence of human rights to animals and ecosystem, so they will no longer be right’-less. This concept has some of its beginning in the idea of “common heritage of mankind”, which means that some places belong to the whole of humanity and that the resources of these places should be available to all. This article outlines the roots, the development and traces current trends in the legal personification of non-human persons. It asks legal-theoretical questions about the limits and possibilities of opening up the concept of legal personhood for non-human legal persons in order to protect the nature and discusses the possibility of creating new institutions that could protect it. The article also shows the importance of creating a new society sensitive to nature’s needs.

Control and Research Based on Improved LADRC in Wind Power Inverter Systems

In the context of global ecological degradation and the gradual depletion of fossil energy sources, the importance of new energy power in production and development is rising year by year. In order to reduce the impact of fluctuations in wind power systems on the grid due to various reasons during grid connection, this paper proposes an improved Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Control (LADRC) combined with a neural network based grid-side inverter control method, which, based on the analysis of the characteristics of permanent magnet motors and the current situation of their use, enables the converter to show better control characteristics in terms of DC-side voltage fluctuation amplitude and recovery time during operation. Simulation results show that the controller is more robust and adaptable to the uncertainty and external disturbance changes of the converter under different operating conditions than the traditional control method. The system has good dynamic response performance.

How does stakeholder engagement through environmental, social, and governance affect eco‐efficiency and profitability efficiency? Zooming into Apple Inc.'s counterparts

AbstractAs global ecological degradation intensifies, a trade‐off has arisen between environmental protection and production efficiency to achieve sustainable development for the environment, society, and the company itself. However, the potential reverse causality relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and corporate efficiency may lead to confusion. This study estimates the eco‐efficiency of Apple Incorporated's value‐chain counterparts in the first stage and creates values and profitability in the second stage of efficiency evaluation. Results obtained from the (i) directional distance function in the two‐stage data envelopment analysis (DEA), (ii) additive efficiency decomposition two‐stage network DEA model, and (iii) network slacks‐based measure model are consistent. That is, Apple counterparts manage more efficient eco‐efficiency than profitability efficiency, implying that eco‐efficiency is their competitive advantage. We thus also run a regression analysis to examine how the ESG ratings of Apple counterparts explain their eco‐efficiency and profitability efficiency. Although the overall ESG rating positively explains the efficiencies, we found that the individual governance rating shows no statistically significant effect. The regression results provide insight for practitioners on the importance of investing in the three aspects of a firm's collective conscientiousness for societal and environmental governance. This paper integrates companies' eco‐efficiency and profitability efficiency to resolve the conflict between environmental issues and production efficiency. It also analyzes in depth the effects of ESG and its three individual factors on eco‐, profitability, and average efficiencies. The diversity of research methods also provides new ideas for future research related to firm efficiency.

Equity, justice and the SDGs: lessons learnt from two decades of INEA scholarship

Environmental justice issues have been incrementally but consistently covered within this journal in the last two decades. This article reviews theoretical and empirical approaches to justice in INEA scholarship in order to identify trends and draw lessons for the interpretation and implementation of the 2030 Agenda and for living within environmental limits. Our review traces how justice considerations were initially covered within new institutionalist scholarship on collective action and social practices, to conceptualizing justice as ‘access and allocation’, to newer notions of planetary justice. We link these trends to scholarship on diverse epistemologies and typologies of justice, including conservative, corrective, distributive and procedural justice, and examine their operationalization within the empirical domains of climate, water and sustainable development. In concluding, we draw out implications for the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. We argue that a just approach is essential to living within environmental limits, with greater synergies needed between collective action and social practice approaches. While justice can be unpacked for practical and political reasons into access and allocation, we find that (procedural) access considerations are more politically palatable in practice than a concern with allocation (distributive justice), which remains much more contested. As such, dominant approaches promote ‘conservative’ or thin market-based notions of justice. We conclude by noting that just allocation is a precondition to just access. A failure to prioritize and achieve more corrective and distributive forms of justice will, without doubt, contribute to exacerbating global ecological degradation.

An integrated evaluation framework for Land-Space ecological restoration planning strategy making in rapidly developing area

Ecological restoration is important to mitigate global ecological degradation. However, previous restoration, mainly targeting a single ecosystem or ecological problem at a single scale, couldn’t effectively solve systemic ecological problems, especially in rapidly developing areas. Land-Space Ecological Restoration (LSER) policy was proposed to change the situation that traditional ecological restoration was lack of overall planning and united goals. To integrate ecological restoration measures in different departments and scales in LSER practice and management, a multi-scale evaluation framework for LSER planning strategy making based on “P-S-R” perspective and landscape, ecological, GIS methods was proposed, and applied in Jiangsu Yangtze River Economic Belt in China. We took fishnet scale as data calculation unit, and town, county, regional scales as decision scale to formulate a hierarchical evaluation and decision making system. In study area, ecological engineering type (including 7 kinds of protection or restoration, and artificial or natural measures) at town level was identified, guided by county-level LSER zoning and grading obtained by normal cloud model evaluation method. At regional scale, an ecological network including 53 ecological sources, 95 corridors, 674 restoration points, and 80 footstones was constructed to determine regional restoration priority. Based on the research results, a decision-making system could be formed, with the regional ecological network as the decision-making basis for the overall restoration pattern, the county-level LSER classification as the standard for planning goals and task decomposition, and the township LSER project classification as the basis for the site selection of diverse ecological restoration projects. The proposed evaluation framework could integrate the data and decision-making process of ecological restoration measures at different scales, and assist regional ecological goal setting and space strategy making of LSER planning to achieve sustainable development goals.

Comprehensive partitions and different strategies based on ecological security and economic development in Guizhou Province, China

Global ecological degradation and rapid economic growth has increased the focus on the sustainable relationship between ecological security and economic development. This paper evaluated and partitioned Guizhou Province’s ecological security and economic development, and discussed the population, industrial structure and land use of each zone in 2010 and 2015. An ecological security assessment was performed based on land use. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate the level of economic development. Spatially, the ecological security level was high in the south and low in the north of the province, while economic development in central regions was higher than in surrounding areas. The ecological security and wealth gaps were widening. In this study, Guizhou Province was partitioned into the Coordinated Development Zone (CDZ), the Ecological Risk Zone (ERZ), the Economic Poverty Zone (EPZ), and the Dual Pressure Zone (DPZ) based on the ecological security index and economic development index. The characteristics of the population, industrial structure, and land use in the zones showed that generally: (1) Populations became more aggregated in prosperous regions, while ecological security was higher in regions with sparse populations. (2) Regions with a high proportion of primary industry (over 25% in 2010 and over 23% in 2015) lagged economically, while regions with a high proportion of secondary industry (over 35% in 2010 and over 33% in 2015) were prosperous. In poor regions, tertiary industry had less ability to drive economic growth than secondary industry. (3) Nearly half of the communities with below-median values in the ecological security index had a grassland proportion between 20% and 32%, but most of the communities with above-median values in the ecological security index had a grassland proportion of less than 20%. Most communities with better ecological security had a high proportion of forestlands (over 52% in 2010 and over 53% in 2015), and a low proportion of croplands (below 30% in 2010 and below 27% in 2015). The communities with low ecological security showed the opposite pattern. The expansion of mining fields, transportation lands, and settlements on built-up lands was conducive to economic development, but they threatened regional ecological security. Different strategies are proposed for the four zones, based on the analysis. In the CDZ, priority should be given to developing tertiary industry that will improve ecological security. In the ERZ, controls over resource-based industry should be strengthened to implement sustainable industrial development and the focus on ecological restoration and environmental governance should be increased. In the EPZ, the development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries should be integrated based on tourism, and ecological, environmental and biological resources. In the DPZ, the way of transforming lucid waters and lush mountain into invaluable assets should be explored. The Grain for Green Project should be taken seriously and ecological restoration should be combined with poverty alleviation.

Green economic efficiency and its influencing factors in China from 2008 to 2017: Based on the super-SBM model with undesirable outputs and spatial Dubin model

Due to the pressure of global ecological degradation, the coordination of economic increase and ecological protection has drawn attention from policymakers and practitioners. Green economic efficiency (GEE) is a comprehensive index to measure economic, social, and environmental development. As China is the second-biggest economy in the world with high-energy consumption, it is necessary to investigate its green economy efficiency. In this paper, we innovatively adopt a super-SBM (slacks-based measure) model with undesirable outputs to calculate the GEE in 30 provinces of China between 2008 and 2017, and then comprehensively apply a spatial Dubin model (SDM) to investigated its influencing factors. The results showed that the overall GEE in China during the study period was at a low level with significant regional differences. The inter-regional GEE generally showed a gradient decreasing pattern of “East-Middle-West”, which demonstrates a gradual decline from the East to the West in China. The trend of the national GEE initially dropped and then gradually stabilized over the study period. Foreign trade dependence and direct investment had significant positive effects on the GEE, while the secondary industry and urbanization level had a significant negative effect.

A Systemic-Relational Ethical Framework for Aquatic Ecosystem Health Research and Management in Social–Ecological Systems

This paper argues that if the goal of slowing global ecological degradation, and of sustained improvement in aquatic ecosystem health is to be achieved, then a departure is required from the traditional, discipline-focused approach to aquatic ecosystem health research and management. It argues that a shift needs to be made towards systemic, integrative, and holistic approaches, drawing on diverse disciplines, with values and ethics as fundamental to such approaches. The paper proposes the systemic-relational (SR) ethical framework to aquatic ecosystem health research and management as an essential contribution to addressing the potential intractability of the continuing deterioration of aquatic ecosystem health. The framework recognises the centrality of values in aquatic ecosystem health management, and the role of ethics in negotiating, and constructively balancing, conflicting values to realise healthy ecosystems in social–ecological systems (SES). The implications of the framework in terms of the research-practice interface, decision making, policy formulation, and communication are discussed.

Linking economic growth pathways and environmental sustainability by understanding development as alternate social–ecological regimes

Scientists understand how global ecological degradation is occurring but not why it seems to be so difficult to reverse. We used national-level data and a mathematical model to provide an empirical test of the hypothesis that national economies display two distinct economic regimes that are maintained by self-reinforcing feedbacks between natural resources and society. Our results not only support previous findings that two distinct groups exist, but also show that countries move toward one of these two different equilibrium points because of their different patterns of natural resource use and responses to population growth. At the less economically developed equilibrium point maintained by "green-loop" feedbacks, human populations depend more directly on ecosystems for income. At the more economically developed equilibrium point maintained by "red-loop" feedbacks, nonecosystem services (e.g., technology, manufacturing, services) generate the majority of national gross domestic product (GDP), but increasing consumption of natural resources means that environmental impacts are higher and are often exported (via cross-scale feedbacks) to other countries. Feedbacks between income and population growth are pushing countries farther from sustainability. Our analysis shows that economic growth alone cannot lead to environmental sustainability and that current trajectories of resource use cannot be sustained without breaking feedback loops in national and international economies.

Deep transitions: Emergence, acceleration, stabilization and directionality

Industrial society has not only led to high levels of wealth and welfare in the Western world, but also to increasing global ecological degradation and social inequality. The socio-technical systems that underlay contemporary societies have substantially contributed to these outcomes. This paper proposes that these socio-technical systems are an expression of a limited number of meta-rules that, for the past 250 years, have driven innovation and hence system evolution in a particular direction, thereby constituting the First Deep Transition. Meeting the cumulative social and ecological consequences of the overall direction of the First Deep Transition would require a radical change, not only in socio-technical systems but also in the meta-rules driving their evolution – the Second Deep Transition. This paper develops a new theoretical framework that aims to explain the emergence, acceleration, stabilization and directionality of Deep Transitions. It does so through the synthesis of two literatures that have attempted to explain large-scale and long-term socio-technical change: the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions, and Techno-economic Paradigm (TEP) framework.

Framework Design of Eco-Technology Evaluation Platform and Integration System

Abstract: Global ecological degradation is a matter of enormous concern. In the early 20st century, the United States, Europe and China began to apply eco-technology to ecosystem management and restoration in order to slow down or stop ecological degradation. To date, there has been neither a systematic summary and scientific evaluation, nor is there a unified platform to describe ecological degradation problems in different areas and existing eco-technologies. These shortcomings have hindered the popularization and application of technologies. This study intends to build an eco-technology evaluation platform and integration system that brings together heterogeneous data from multiple sources. The key technology of the eco-technology evaluation platform and integration system is information integration technology. We will establish a metadata engine based on metadata storage to achieve access to and integration of metadata and heterogeneous data sources. The information integration mode based on a metamod...

Deep Transitions: Emergence, Acceleration, Stabilization and Directionality

The unfolding of industrial modernity has led to high levels of wealth and welfare in the Western world but also to increasing global ecological degradation and social inequality. The routine mode of operation of a wide range of socio-technical systems, forming the material backbone of contemporary societies, has substantially contributed to these outcomes. This paper proposes that all these systems can be seen as a surface expression of fundamental meta-rules that for the past 250 years have driven the evolution of these systems and system innovation towards particular directions, thereby constituting the First Deep Transition. To meet the accumulated social and ecological challenges would therefore require a radical change not only in socio-technical systems but also in meta-rules underlying their functioning – the Second Deep Transition. This paper develops a new theoretical framework aiming to explain the emergence, acceleration, stabilization and directionality of Deep Transitions. It does so through the synthesis of three strands of literature: individual socio-technical systems, interconnected systems and industrialization-related macro-trends.

生态技术评价方法及全球生态治理技术研究

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 生态技术评价方法及全球生态治理技术研究 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201610142080 作者: 作者单位: 中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所,中国科学院水利部水土保持研究所,西北农林科技大学,中国水利水电科学研究院,水利部水土保持监测中心,中国科学院兰州文献情报中心,中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所,中国科学院水利部水土保持研究所,中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家重点研发计划项目（2016YFC0503700） The methodology for assessing ecological restoration technologies and evaluation of global ecosystem rehabilitation technologies Author: Affiliation: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS,,,,,,,, Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:全球范围内生态退化形势严峻，生态技术在遏制生态退化进程中发挥着重要作用。长期以来，对生态技术缺乏系统研究和评价，影响了其在脆弱生态区生态治理中的应用与推广。“生态技术评价方法、指标体系及全球生态治理技术评价”项目（2016YFC0503700）获得国家重点研发计划“典型脆弱生态修复与保护研究”专项支持。该项目旨在厘清全球生态退化状况及其对生态技术的需求，建立生态技术评价指标体系与方法模型，评价国内外不同类型生态技术以及重大生态工程区和不同生态退化区域的生态技术实施效果，筛选和推介满足我国及发展中国家生态治理需求的生态技术，建立生态技术评价平台和集成系统，为推动我国生态文明建设和发展中国家生态治理提供科学支撑。 Abstract:Ecological degradation is grim on global level, and ecological restoration technologies play important roles in the process of mitigating ecosystem degradation. For a long time, the lack of systematic research on the ecological technologies has affected its application in ecological fragile zones. Supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, National Key Research and Development Program of "Typical fragile ecological restoration and protection" has recently launched a project entitled "The methodology and indicator system for assessing ecological restoration technologies and evaluation of global ecosystem rehabilitation technologies" (2016YFC0503700). The main goals of this project are:clarifying the global ecological degradation status and needs of ecological technologies; establishing indicator system for assessment of ecological technologies; evaluating the effects of different types of ecological technologies in regions of national key ecological restoration projects are implemented, as well as different ecological degradation zones; screening appropriate ecological technologies to meet the demand of ecological civilization construction and ecological governance of China; building up ecological technology evaluation platform and integrated system; and eventually providing scientific support for China's ecosystem protection and ecological restoration and the global ecological governance. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Critique and transformation: On the hypothetical nature of ecosystem service value and its neo-Marxist, liberal and pragmatist criticisms

Ecosystem service valuation (ESV) attempts to transform the opposition of human economic necessity and ecological conservation by valuing the latter in terms of the services rendered by the former. However, despite a number of ESV-inspired sustainability initiatives since the 1990s, global ecological degradation continues to accelerate. This suggests that ESV has fallen far short of its goals of sustainable social transformation—a failure which has generated considerable criticism. This paper reviews three prominent lines of ESV criticism: 1) the neo-Marxist criticism, which emphasizes the “fictitious” character of ecosystem commodities; 2) the liberal criticism through Friedrich Hayek's concept “scientistic objectivism”; and 3) the pragmatist criticism of “value monism”. Although each form of criticism provides insight into the limitations of ESV, all share ESV's inability to discern what kind of social transformation is possible. Unable to provide an account of their own immersion in social and historical context, these approaches operate in the hypothetical. In light of these shortcomings, this paper advances a critical theory approach, which we contend provides conceptual tools uniquely well-suited to more adequately address the question of social transformation.

The relative impact of countries on global natural resource consumption and ecological degradation

Global consumption of natural resources and ecological degradation continues unabated as a result of human activity and economic growth in countries individually and collectively. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to determine the countries that are the main drivers of ecological change. This study provides rankings of countries according to their impact on global natural resource consumption and ecological degradation, based on aggregate impact (across categories/variables) and ranking within each category/variable separately. Rankings for impact on resource consumption are based on eight variables in five major categories: energy, marine fisheries, forestry, freshwater and agriculture; rankings for global ecological degradation are based on seven ecological variables in four major categories: biodiversity, carbon emissions, forest losses, agricultural land use change/land degradation. The total ecological impact is based on all 15 variables. The study also ranked countries on each of the natural resource consumption and ecological degradation variables separately. In no individual resource consumption category did countries ranking in the top 20 account for less than 70% of global consumption, and for three ecological degradation variables the top 20 nations account for more than 74% of global ecological degradation. In addition, the study considered how the relative share of global resource consumption and ecological degradation are distributed between and among countries when they are classified by income level. This analysis indicates that the distribution of the impact of global resource consumption and ecological degradation varies considerably with income group.