Here we have an example problem that says, France has a population of 68,000,000 and a total ecological footprint of 312,800,000 global hectares. Qatar has a population of 2,670,000 and a total ecological footprint of 39,700,000 global hectares. Which of these nations has the higher per capita ecological footprint? Below are four potential answer options. Notice that this image of the world map is color-coded to the per capita ecological footprint in global hectares. That's what these values represent.
To calculate the per capita ecological footprint, which, recall, means per individual, all we need to do is take the total ecological footprint for each of these countries and divide it by their total population size. When we do that for France, the calculation will come out as:
312,800,000 global hectares 68,000,000 peopleWhen you type this in your calculator, you get an answer of 4.6, with the units being global hectares per person. Now when you do this for Qatar, the calculation will be:
39,700,000 global hectares 2,670,000 peopleAnd when you type this in your calculator, you get an answer of about 14.9, with the units being global hectares per person.
Clearly, Qatar has the larger per capita ecological footprint. Thus, answer option b, which says Qatar, is the correct answer to this problem. That concludes this example problem, and I'll see you all in our next video.