A material flow-based approach for diagnosing urban ecosystem health

Abstract

a b s t r a c tUrban ecosystem health is an important concept in sustainable development. Knowledge of health status is crucial to maintaining the health of urban ecosystems. Existing methods for assessing urban ecosystem health often focus on a synthesizing assessment but neglect analysis of process. These approaches often rely on a complex indicator system that includes social, economic and environmental factors and use synthesis indicators. This means that their ability to provide diagnosis information for decision makers is limited. For meeting this need, this paper developed a diagnosis approach based on material flow for assessing urban ecosystem health.A healthy urban ecosystem should be able to support urban development and have enough resilience to recover from ecological environmental stress. Healthy material flow can support the function of the system. Therefore material flow can be regarded as a key factor that reflects the health of an urban ecosystem. This paper explores the mechanism for material flow between urban and natural ecosystems and reveals the main problems that affect urban ecosystem health. A material flow model of urban ecosystems is established by using this mechanism. By using this model, a diagnosis framework is developed for diagnosis of urban ecosystem health. The framework consists of function analysis, input eoutput flow analysis, health assessment, and function optimization. It focuses on developing a material flow-based diagnosis approach and an indicator system including function-based indicators and effectbased indicators. Case studies show that this approach can not only diagnose the health problems of an urban ecosystem but can also identify the main causes of the problems. Therefore our approach can aid decision makers in making a timely and informative diagnosis of urban ecosystem health to support planning and management decisions.

Resilience and Complexity: A Bibliometric Review and Prospects for Industrial Ecology

“…Crowther and Haimes () and Xu and colleagues () point out that regional economies are complex and interdependent. Similarly, Agudelo‐Vera and colleagues () and Shi and Yang () highlight the complexity of urban systems.…”

“…Seven publications use a static definition, 12 dynamic, and 18 either unclear or only mention resilience in passing. To illustrate how these opposing perspectives are conveyed, Ouyang (, 53) defines resilience of critical infrastructure systems as the capacity to “resist,” “absorb the initial damage, and recover to normal operation.” This static conception reduces resilience to resistance and bouncing back, as does Shi and Yang's (, 440) material flow analysis (MFA) study where resilience is defined as “the restoration ability” of a system. Exemplifying the dynamic perspective by noting that ecosystems have multiple stable states, Ashton () uses Holling's adaptive cycle model to understand industrial ecosystems, and Garcia‐Serna and colleagues (2007, 28) contrast resilience with resistance and specifically argue that green engineering “cannot be static.”…”

Assessment of Urban Ecosystem Health Based on Entropy Weight Extension Decision Model in Urban Agglomeration

“…Based on previous academic achievements and regional characteristics, this study established a comprehensive indexing system for selecting reasonable indicators and scientifically evaluating the ecosystem health of the cities in the UA located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River [17,18,20,21]. Meanwhile, the choice of index system took into consideration the availability, operability, hierarchy, and completeness of the scientific data.…”

“…All factors were positive indicators, except for energy consumption per 10,000 Yuan of GDP, water consumption per 10,000 Yuan of GDP, the per capita annual disposable income ratio of urban and rural areas, Engel's coefficient of urban households, and the urban area's population density. In this study, the classification of most indicators' attributes draw on the experience of the previous academic achievements [17,18,20,21], except for the per capita annual disposable income ratio of urban and rural areas and the urban area's population density. The classification of these two indicators' attributes is based on the development actuality and the State Environmental Protection Agency's policy (the proposed regulations on the construction index of eco-county, eco-city, and eco-province).…”

Comprehensive Analysis of Nitrogen Deposition in Urban Ecosystem: A Case Study of Xiamen City, China

“…However, because an urban ecosystem's resistance against diseases and pests is weak compared with that of natural ecosystems and its status as an ecological shelter is unstable [50,51], the impact of nitrogen deposition on such ecosystems is likely to be more significant. Besides, only a healthy urban ecosystem can support urban development [52] but no internationally recognized ecological risk assessment model for nitrogen deposition has yet been developed. Here, based on the DPSR framework, this paper established a multi-receptor methodology and quantitative method of analysis based on a comprehensive ecological risk assessment model of single-city ecological risk that can be used to develop policy recommendations for the sustainable development of regional ecosystems.…”