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What is a Global Hectare? |
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Global Hectare What is a Global Hectare and why do we use it? A global hectare is a measurement defining an area of global average productivity. It is becoming frequently used in geographic, environmental, and sociological circles, as it relates to ecological footprint and global development. The global hectare is a measurement of biocapacity of the entire earth. One global hectare is a measurement of the average biocapacity of all hectare measurements and biologically productive areas on the planet earth. Global hectares allow meaningful comparisons of ecological footprints between different countries. These countries can use different qualities and mixes of cropland, grazing land, and forest. For comparative purposes an ecological footprint is usually expressed in gha per person. Once all global hectares of bio-productive land and sea are divided by the total global population, we end up with our fair earth share - 1.8 gha (2007). A Global Hectare can also be a useful measure of biocapacity as is can convert things like Human dietary requirements into a physical area and thus show how many people a certain region of the earth can sustain with current technologies and agricultural methods.
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