https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sd.71358
පේපර් එකේ ලොජික් එක ලංකාවට දැම්මොත් ලංකාවේ ජනගහනය මිලියන 16ට අඩු කරන්න වෙනවා
Step 1: Borrow the paper's underlying framework
The Keegan et al. paper argues sustainability = population size × per-capita consumption staying within what Earth can regenerate. I applied that same ecological footprint vs. biocapacity logic at the country level instead of globally.
Step 2: Get Sri Lanka's two key numbers
Biocapacity: how much productive land/sea Sri Lanka has, converted to "global hectares per person" — roughly 0.9–1.0 gha/person
Ecological footprint: how much Sri Lankans actually consume, in the same units — roughly 1.1–1.3 gha/person
These are the kind of figures the Global Footprint Network publishes annually; I was recalling approximate values, not pulling the live dataset.
Step 3: Compare them
Footprint > biocapacity means the country runs an ecological deficit — currently consuming ~15–25% more than its own land can regenerate.
Step 4: Back-solve for a "self-sufficient" population
If per-capita consumption stayed the same but population dropped enough that total demand = total domestic biocapacity, population would need to shrink by roughly that same 15–25%.
22 million × (0.75 to 0.85) ≈ 16–19 million
- Claude