Analyzing the symmetric and asymmetric effects of disaggregate natural resources on the ecological footprint in Saudi Arabia: insights from the dynamic ARDL approach

The present study examines the symmetric and asymmetric effects of natural resource exploitation on the ecological footprint in Saudi Arabia during the period 1981–2018. The analysis is performed for total natural resources and different types of natural resources, including oil, natural gas, and minerals. This research employs the dynamic Autoregressive Distributed Lag (DYNARDL) simulation approach. In addition to its statistical and computational superiority, the DYNARDL allows assessing the environmental repercussions of shocks that occurred on natural resources in both the short- and long-run. The findings suggest that total, oil, and natural gas rents have a positive symmetric association with the ecological footprint in the long run, while no significant impact is identified for mineral resources. When conducting the asymmetric analysis, the findings reveal that only increases in total, oil, and natural gas rents deteriorate the ecological footprint in the long run, while no effects are confirmed for decreases in natural resource rents. The shock analysis reveals that a 10% increase in total and oil rents leads to environmental degradation by 3% in the long run, while a similar upsurge in natural gas rents induces a 4% deterioration in environmental quality. These findings may help design effective resource-use policies to achieve environmental sustainability in Saudi Arabia.