Prefectural Balance Sheet of the Environment: Study Based on the Ecological Footprint

The argument on the index for sustainable development is active internationally after United Nation Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. However, The intelligible and operational index of sustainable development could not be found, especially in the local level. In this paper, first of all, it arranged and classified main existing index for sustainability. This study adopt the environmental capacity according to all prefectures using one of the new indexes of “The Ecological Footprint” which is developed in University of British Columbia in Canada. The Ecological Footprint measures the amount of the globe's biological productivity an individual or a country occupies in a given year. In this paper, Ecological Footprint calculations are based on five categories: “Arable land”, “Pasture”, “Forest area for product paper or timber”, “Urbanized area” and “Forest area for assimilate CO₂”, in prefectural scale. Furthermore, Exports and imports are also considered to calculate Ecological Footprint. Correlation analysis between Ecological Footprint and tax allocated to prefectural government is also examined. The results show that the value of Ecological Footprint is relatively large compared with the environmental capacity in each prefecture, excluding Hokkaido. It is also clarified that Ecological Footprint that was produced from metropolitan area could be covered by local prefectures. Moreover, from correlation analysis, tax allocated to local prefectural governments could be interpreted as the subsidy for environmental balance from metropolitan area.