Adding country resolution to EXIOBASE: impacts on land use embodied in trade

Abstract

Multiregional input–output (MRIO) databases are used to analyze the impact of resource use and environmental impacts along global supply chains. To accurately account for pressures and impacts that are highly concentrated in specifc sectors or regions of the world, such as agricultural and land-use-related impacts, MRIO databases are being fueled by increasingly more detailed data. To date no MRIO database exists which couples a high level of harmonized sector detail with high country resolution. Currently available databases either aggregate minor countries into rest-of-the-world (WIOD and EXIOBASE 3), or the high country resolution is achieved at the cost of nonharmonized or lower sectoral detail (Eora, OECD-ICIO or the GTAP-MRIO). This aggrega‑ tion can cause potentially signifcant diferences in environmental and socioeconomic impact calculations. In this paper, we describe the development of an EXIOBASE 3 variant that expands regional coverage from 49 regions to 214 countries, while keeping the high and harmonized sectoral detail. We show the relevance of disaggregation for land-use accounting. Previous rest-of-the-world regions supply one-third of global land, which is used to produce a large range of diferent products under very diferent levels of productivity. We fnd that the aggregation of regions leads to a diference in the balance of land embodied in trade of up to 6% and a diference of land embodied in imports of up to 68% for individual countries and up to 600% for land-use-relevant sectors. Whilst the database can still be considered experimental, it is expected to increase the accuracy of estimates for environmental footprint studies of the original EXIOBASE countries, and provides the frst estimates for the countries in the previous rest-of-the world.