Chapter 1: Introduction - overview and relevant background, including published (cross-disciplinary) research that provides a context and justification for the study -- Chapter 2: The Ecological Footprint - tracking the evolution of this sustainability metric -- Chapter 3: Biocapacity accounting - used to develop a context for carrying capacity set against the Ecological Footprint -- Chapter 4: Case study - national scale case consideration of Costa Rica as an example of a developing country set amid the contemporary context of sustainable development -- Chapter 5: Implications - examines the contribution for sustainable development, using the Sustainable Development Goals as a springboard for discussion -- Chapter 6: Quality Analysis - presents caveats of the methodology based on the National Footprint Accounts -- Chapter 7: Conclusion - summary of the findings and contribution of the brief, including address of path dependency and final consideration given to sustainability metrics and sustainable development.

This book examines the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting within an applied development content for Costa Rica. By doing so, it is possible to track changes as well as perhaps link these to overarching global issues, such as trade, globalization, and food security, among other emergent topics based findings stemming from this methodology. Based on a timeseries since 1961, it is possible to track cross-temporal changes of land-type categories (for crop land, grazing land, forest land, fishing ground, built-up land, and carbon) of the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity conveying whether a country is in ecological deficit and what may be contributing to such a trend.