| Conventional measures of economic wealth such as GNP do not account for the importance of the environment and natural resource base, termed natural capital, to wealth creation and waste disposal. An integrated economic-ecologic approach is presented that measures how much the economy and the environment must produce, in concert, to support economic activity. A multifaceted economic-ecologic input-output model is developed that can be used to estimate the following: natural capital stock replenishment requirements, total economic-ecologic output, production byproducts, changes in indicators of ecosystem health, and natural capital consumption ratios. Each of these factors can be used alone or collectively to estimate different measures of natural capital depreciation. Depreciation quantifies the regeneration, restoration, importation, and/or new discoveries necessary to maintain stocks of natural capital. This makes it possible to gauge the sustainability of economic activity in an economic-ecologic system. One component of the model, natural capital stock replenishment requirements, is applied to a case study. The model is used to estimate the impact of a ski resort development on a rural economy and environment. |
