Material flow accounting in an Irish city-region 1992–2002 |
| |
| Authors: | David Browne Bernadette O’Regan Richard Moles |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Trinity College, Dublin (TCD), Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland;2. Centre for Environmental Research (CER), Foundation Building, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Republic of Ireland;3. Chemical and Environmental Sciences (CES) Department, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Republic of Ireland;1. Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China;2. Xiamen Key Lab of Urban Metabolism, Xiamen 361021, China;3. Science, Technology, and Innovation Governance, Graduate School of Public Policy, The University of Tokyo, Japan;4. Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy, University College London, UK;5. College of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji-higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan;6. Urban Engineering & Economics Laboratory, Departments of Urban and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishiku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan;7. QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia;1. U.P. Arquitectura, Escuela de Ingeniería y Arquitectura, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain;2. Centro Universitario de la Defensa de Zaragoza, Spain;3. Sostenipra (ICTA – IRTA - Inèdit Innovació SL) 2014 SGR 1412. Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología Ambiental (ICTA), Unidad de excelencia «María de Maeztu» (MDM-2015-0552), Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain;4. Department of Environmental, Biological and Chemical Engineering (XBR), Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain;1. Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO), a partnership between the University of Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), and the Gauteng Provincial Government, 4th Floor University Corner, 11 Jorissen Street (Cnr Jorissen and Jan Smuts), Braamfontein, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa;2. Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley, 202 Wurster Hall #2000, Berkeley, CA 94720-2000, United States |
| |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to measure raw material inputs and waste flows in an Irish city-region in order to analyse (i) whether there was absolute dematerialisation in the particular case study over the period 1992–2002 and (ii) whether material consumption and waste generation were decoupled from economic growth and increases in disposable income over the same period. It was found that the selected material flow indicators showed no evidence of absolute dematerialisation over the given study period, although more recent evidence at the national level suggests that a decline in construction activity and extraction of non-metallic minerals has resulted in an absolute reduction in material consumption and it is likely that this will be mirrored at the system boundary level.It was found that Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) per capita and Direct Material Input (DMI) per capita increased at a faster rate than Domestic Processed Output (DPO) per capita and Direct Material Output (DMO) per capita between 1992 and 2002, which indicates relative decoupling of consumption from waste generation. In addition, it was found that there was relative decoupling of consumption and waste generation from disposable income growth over the study period. Finally, it was found that average DMC and DMI figures for the selected case study were lower than the national averages but broadly similar to results for other city-regions in the European Union (EU). On a methodological note, it was concluded that material flow accounting (MFA) for city-regions in Ireland is constrained due to a lack of disaggregated data for material flows, with the exception of local waste data, and it is recommended that bottom-up analysis should be used to complement disaggregated top-down data. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
