Abstract: According to the five principles, i.e., materiality, natural attribute, stock attribute, non-renewable and non-duplication accounting, the resources accounted for in the natural resource balance sheet (NRBS) should include six categories, i.e. cultivated land, forest land, grassland, wetland, water area and minerals. Land assets, rights and liabilities can be defined as land ecological footprint, biocapacity and ecological deficit in the ecological footprint approach, and the environmental liabilities can be defined as consumed mineral resources. This kind of definitions can clarify the concepts of assets, liabilities, rights and interests of land resources and minerals (environment), and their quantities and values are easier to be checked. To calculate the value of land resources by using the present earning value method and the equivalent factor method of ecosystem value can not only consider the economic value of the land, but also the non-economic values, such as climate regulation and so on, so as to avoid the underestimation of the land value. A set of NRBS compiled on the basis of China’s relevant data from 2006 to 2020 shows that the equity value of China’s natural resources is about 68 times the corresponding annual gross domestic production (GDP), an order of magnitude higher than the physical capital stock. The comparison with other compilation results can illustrate that it is feasible to use the ecological footprint method to compile the NRBS, which is relatively simple, highly operable, and the results are more credible.

Key words: natural resource balance sheet, ecological footprint method, quantity accounting, value accounting