ORIGINAL PAPER Food security and ecological footprint of coastal zone of Bangladesh B. K. Bala • M. A. Hossain Received: 1 February 2009 / Accepted: 8 September 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract This paper presents the present status of food security and ecological footprint, an indicator of environmental sustainability of the coastal zones of Bangladesh. To esti- mate the present status of the food security and ecological footprint of the coastal zone of Bangladesh, primary and secondary data were collected, and the present status of food security and environmental degradation (in terms of ecological footprint) were calculated. To estimate the household food security, primary data were also collected from all the households in a representative selected village. A quantitative method for computation of food security in grain equivalent based on economic returns (price) is developed, and a method of measuring sustainable development in terms of ecological footprint developed by Wackernagel is used to estimate the environmental sustainability (Wackernagel and Rees in Our ecological footprint: reducing human impact on the earth. New Society, Gabrioala, BC, 1996; Chambers et al. in Sharing nature’s interest-ecological footprint as an indicator of sustainability. Earthscan, London, 2000). Overall status of food security at upazila levels is good for all the upazilas except Shoronkhola, Shyamnager and Morrel- gonj, and the best is the Kalapara upazila. But the status of food security at household levels is poor. Environmental status in the coastal zones is poor for all the upazilas except Kalapara and Galachipa. The worst is in the Mongla upazila. Environmental status has degraded mainly due to shrimp culture. This study suggests that control measures are needed for affected upazilas and any further expansion of the shrimp aquaculture to enhance the food security must take into account the environmental aspects of the locality under consideration. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue. B. K. Bala (&) Department of Farm Power and Machinery, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymemnsingh 2202, Bangladesh e-mail: bkbalabau@yahoo.com M. A. Hossain Bangladeh Agricultural Research Institute, Gazipur 1701, Bangladesh e-mail: manower70@yahoo.com 123 Environ Dev Sustain DOI 10.1007/s10668-009-9209-0