A unit of measured productivity used to report both the biocapacity of the earth, and the demand on biocapacity or ecological footprint. The global hectare is based on the area-weighted average productivity of usable land and water in a given year. Because different land types have different productivity, a global hectare of, for example, cropland, would occupy a smaller physical area than the much less biologically productive pasture land, as more pasture would be needed to provide the same biocapacity as one hectare of cropland. Because world bioproductivity varies slightly from year to year, the value of a GHA may change slightly from year to year.