According to Oxford Dictionary environmental footprint is the "impact of a person or community on the environment," or the demand on the resources in the environment.

Rice's environmental footprint, or demand on the environment, includes land use, water use and quality, energy, ecological systems, and soil quality.

Unsustainable agricultural activities, especially in the major rice-growing areas, could further deplete the earth’s natural resource capital.

CORIGAP aims to develop a computational framework to help design and assess an optimized rice production system with minimized environmental impact. A team of environmental experts will collect relevant data to help establish environmental indicators for different farming practices in landscape and field levels. This will ensure that integrated rice technologies could increase farmers’ productivity and income with minimized environmental footprint.

An indicator is a standard measurement: it represents an environmental process that can be monitored over decades. Indicators at the farm level could be profitability and efficiency in the use of water, nutrients, fuel, and pesticide. At the landscape level, indicators could be water quality, biodiversity in plant and animal populations, global warming potential, salinity, and others.