ABSTRACT
The acceleration of global climate change has led researchers to focus on the effects of human activities on the environment. This study investigates the possible impact of economic growth, energy use, and fertility rate on ecological footprint and biocapacity by the ARDL model to evaluate the environmental quality of Turkey for the period 1970-2016. Therefore, the paper tests the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis to reveal the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality. The findings point that the EKC hypothesis is valid for Turkey. After determining the cointegration relationship between the ARDL model and series, the long-term coefficients are estimated. The results show that energy use positively affects ecological footprint, while it negatively affects biocapacity. This means that energy use causes environmental degradation in terms of both ecological footprint and biocapacity. Besides, the study reaches that fertility rate positively affects both ecological footprint and biocapacity. The error correction results of the model indicate that the deviations from the equilibrium between the series in the short run converge to the equilibrium point in the long run.