In this paper we present a complex Ecological Footprint (EF) analysis of one of the largest metropolitan regions in post-socialist East Central Europe, the Budapest Metropolitan Region. Our overall goal is to use both top-down and bottom-up approaches and measure the changes of footprint at a metropolitan scale between 2003 and 2013. Our specific objective is to explore how the spatial rearrangements of wealth, density and consumption influence the spatiotemporal changes of EF. The top-down (compound) calculations indicate growing footprint values both in Hungary and in the Budapest Metropolitan Region in the investigated period. However, household-level hybrid (component-based) calculations revealed decreasing footprint values for Hungary both in absolute and relative terms, and a growth for the metropolitan region. This finding suggests growing income disparities within the country. The indirect (consumption embedded) components of EF findings show that in the core city footprint values are higher due to higher disposable income. However, there is a gradual catching up in the suburban zone as younger and more affluent households arrive. On the other hand, direct per capita footprint values decreased in Budapest and grew in the suburbs between 2003 and 2013, mainly due to a higher heating footprint.

The main aim of this paper is to explore how daily commuting has contributed to the changes of ecological footprint in the Buda-pest urban region since 1990 by using census data of 1990, 2001 and 2011. First, the func-tional urban region of Budapest was delim-ited using the 15% threshold of daily com-muting to work to Budapest in 2001. Accord-ing to international methodology 185 sur-rounding municipalities and Budapest were defined as the urban region. Using data on the transport vehicle of commuting the vol-ume of CO2 emissions was estimated at mu-nicipal level for the 185 municipalities. Final-ly, on the basis of emission values the ecolog-ical footprint of the whole urban region was estimated. Our results show declining ecolog-ical footprint values throughout the 1990s, due to decreasing commuting rates, which is the result of economic restructuring, growing unemployment and less mobility of the la-bour force. However, as commuting in-creased due to economic upswing after 2000 the ecological footprint also grew, the use of motor vehicles (private car and bus) in com-muting substantially and dynamically in-creased. In the reviewed periodspatial struc-ture of commuting significantly changed: rail-commuting shrunk into a few outstanding transport axes, whereas the use of passenger cars increased also in the less booming areas of the urban agglomeration.