Natural resources balance sheets accounting: theoretical framework and practice in the Shaanxi province of China

TL;DR

This paper develops a natural resources balance sheet framework to improve resource management and accountability in Shaanxi, China, integrating financial methods to assess assets, liabilities, and net worth for sustainable development.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive NRBS framework with specific accounts and components, applying it to Shaanxi to enhance government oversight and responsibility.

Findings

NRBS framework is practical using available data.

Accounting reveals resource management threats.

Policy implications for government accountability.

Abstract

To achieve sustainable development, there is widespread of the need to protect natural resource and improve government oversight in achieving China's economic security and ecological civilization. Compilation of natural resources balance sheet (NRBS) and enhancement of resources management are becoming an important topic in China. How to compile NRBS to affix the responsibility for government and officials for inadequate supervision is still not resolved satisfactorily. This paper proposes the NRBS to enable governments to identify the importance of natural resource restoration and to hold leading cadres accountable for a lack of adequate supervision. The NRBS consist of three accounts: natural resource assets, natural resource liabilities, and net worth. Important components of the NRBS for the liabilities account with a property rights regime are developed to measure and assign responsibility. The compilation of an NRBS is applied to the Chinese province of Shaanxi as an illustration to demonstrate that the accounting framework and the compilation steps are tractable using financial methods and available data. The accounting results of natural resource assets and liabilities unveil the threat to resource management and the policy implications to government and officials. Finally, the advantages and limitations of NRBS are discussed.