Rice is a staple food supplying a large share of calories in so many countries and requiring a large amount of land and water. Rice is also a substantial source of methane (CH₄) emissions. In this paper, water and land use, and CH₄ emissions from rice in 167 countries during the period2000-2016 are estimated.A Physical Trade Analysis based on a Material Flow Analysis is developed to estimate the virtual water, land and emissions linked to international rice trade and to final consumption. Globally, while water and land use, and CH₄ emissions from rice slightly grew from 2000 to 2016 (7-8%), a substantial improvement of the production efficiency resulted in saving of 187 Gm³ of green water, 82 Gm³ of blue water, 40 Mha of land and 31 ktonnes of CH₄ emissions (2000-2016). It implies that the main driver is the volume of rice produced. Domestic consumption covered the largest share (94%) whereas international trade had low significance (6%). However, for some Asiatic and African countries the trade contribution was relevant.The multiple assessment developed in this study allows the parallel evaluation of three environmental stressors revealing potential drivers and trade-offs among them. In particular, we find that when improving the yield by 0.5 tonnes/ha, a global reduction of about 10% for each stressor is recorded. The approach used in this paper constitutes a more advanced information for policymakersand an innovative tool upon which environmental policies may be based.