Comparative Analysis for the Urban Metabolic Differences of Two Types of Cities in the Resource-Dependent Region Based on Emergy Theory
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Research Area
2.2. Data Source
2.3. Emergy Analysis
- (1)
- Analyze the main ingredients and energy flows of the urban metabolism of the research area, and establish a basic database consisting of the natural environment, agriculture, industry, and other economic and social sectors.
- (2)
- Make an emergy analysis diagram and define the system boundary, make a list of input sources and output sources, and then calculate the emergy value in terms of solar emjoules (sej) by the process of conversion. The conversion equation is as follows:
- (3)
3. Results
3.1. Metabolic Emergy Structure
3.2. Metabolic Intensity
3.3. Metabolic Pressure
3.4. Metabolic Efficiency
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions and Policy Implications
Acknowledgments
Author Contributions
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Emergy Category | Item | Unit | Tranformity (sej/J) | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Renewable resource emergy (R) | Solar energy | J | 1 | [34] |
Wind Energy | J | 2.45 × 103 | [35] | |
Rainfall energy(chemical) | J | 3.05 × 104 | [35] | |
Rainfall energy(geo-potential) | J | 4.70 × 104 | [35] | |
Earth cycle energy | J | 5.80 × 104 | [35] | |
Agricultural products | g | 4.08 × 1011 | [34] | |
Livestock | g | 2.50 × 1011 | [34] | |
Aquatic products | g | 3.02 × 1010 | [34] | |
Non-renewable resource emergy (N) | Losses of topsoil | t | 1.71 × 103 | [35] |
Electricity | J | 2.69 × 105 | [34] | |
Steel | g | 3.02 × 109 | [34] | |
Raw coal | J | 6.72 × 104 | [34] | |
Petroleum | J | 1.86 × 105 | [34] | |
Diesel | J | 1.86 × 105 | [34] | |
Natural gas | J | 8.06 × 104 | [34] | |
Fuel oil | J | 6.25 × 104 | [35] | |
Chemical fertilizer | t | 8.28 × 106 | [36] | |
Imported emergy (IM) | Goods income | $ | 9.37 × 1012 | [35] |
Toursim income | $ | 1.66 × 1012 | [36] | |
Exported emergy (EX) | Goods and service income | $ | 6.34 × 1012 | [35] |
Waste emergy (W) | Solid waste | g | 1.80 × 109 | [8] |
Waste water | g | 6.66 × 108 | [8] | |
Waste air | g | 6.66 × 108 | [8] |
Metabolic Category | Emergy Indicators | Unit | Formula | Explanation |
---|---|---|---|---|
Metabolic emergy structure | Total emergy per year (U) | Sej | R+ N + IM | Total emergy (the export and waste are not included) |
Emergy extroversion ratio (EER) | 1 | (IM + EX)/(U + EX + W) | The dependency degree to the import and export of the urban system | |
Metabolic intensity | Emergy money ratio (EMR) | sej/yuan | U/GDP | Emergy flux produced per unit of economic output |
Emergy per capita (EP) | sej/cap | U/Population | Metabolic efficiency per capita | |
Metabolic pressure | Environmental loading ratio (ELR) | 1 | (N + IM)/R | Metabolic system’s pressure on the environment |
Emergy waste ratio (EWR) | 1 | W/R | The circulation power of the urban system | |
Metabolic efficiency | Emergy yield ratio (EYR) | 1 | (R + N + IM)/IM | The capacity of resource output of the urban system |
Emergy sustainable index (ESI) | 1 | EYR/ELR | The sustainability capacity of the local urban system |
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Liu, C.; Shi, X.; Qu, L.; Li, B. Comparative Analysis for the Urban Metabolic Differences of Two Types of Cities in the Resource-Dependent Region Based on Emergy Theory. Sustainability 2016, 8, 635. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8070635
Liu C, Shi X, Qu L, Li B. Comparative Analysis for the Urban Metabolic Differences of Two Types of Cities in the Resource-Dependent Region Based on Emergy Theory. Sustainability. 2016; 8(7):635. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8070635
Chicago/Turabian StyleLiu, Chang, Xueyi Shi, Lulu Qu, and Bingyi Li. 2016. "Comparative Analysis for the Urban Metabolic Differences of Two Types of Cities in the Resource-Dependent Region Based on Emergy Theory" Sustainability 8, no. 7: 635. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8070635