From local to national metabolism: a review and a scale-up framework

Abstract

Countries are likely the most important subjects involved in the environmental control and response to global environmental issues, while the majority of the related metabolic analyses are focused on the metabolism at the city scale. A single city or a smaller area is hardly self-sufficient, and its sustainability needs the support of the surrounding environment. Nevertheless, at the country scale, systems exhibit a higher level of self-organization and a corresponding higher level of complexity, addressing the need for applying the metabolic theory at the national scale. Socio-metabolic research is an effective method to study resource and environmental issues and has been applied at different scales. Based on previous studies, this review outlines the origin and development of metabolic theories, metabolic studies at different scales and their research methods, pointing out the relevance of national scale metabolic studies. The interactions among and within the scales are nested, as well as the goals and methods. Socio-metabolic research on scales differ in their priority goals, and the methods adopted must be targeted. In particular, we show the advantages in using the emergy

Multilevel and Multiregional Analysis of the Electricity Metabolism of Mexico across Sectors

“…Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM) is an approach based on integrating various concepts related to complex system theory that makes it possible to perform a check on the feasibility and desirability of patterns of metabolism of socio-economic systems by providing a characterization at different levels and scales [3,14]. The concept of societal metabolism considers a set of transformation processes in a society that is necessary for its reproduction and sustenance over time [32]. The development of this methodology allows the analysis of a large amount of data from national statistics of the economic sectors, demography, and from electricity, to obtain a diagnosis of how these systems are organized and how they interact.…”

“…We should note that there are no studies at the regional level of MuSIASEM inside a country. They exist to compare countries [24][25][26][27], to analyze the evolution of a country [28][29][30] or those that exist focus on a specific region [31,32]. For this reason, this work presents a novel tool for electricity planning and focuses on performing a multilevel and multiregional analysis of Mexico, since there are no multilevel-multiregional works within a country, just as there is no MuSIASEM analysis for Mexico.…”

Multilevel and Multiregional Analysis of the Electricity Metabolism Across Sectors

“…We should note that there are no studies at the regional level of MuSIASEM inside a country. They exist to compare countries [17][18][19][20][21], to analyze the evolution of a country [22][23][24] or those that exist focus on a specific region [25,26]. For this reason, this work focuses on performing a multilevel and multiregional analysis of Mexico, since there are no multilevel-multiregional works within a country, just as there is no MuSIASEM analysis for Mexico.…”

Strategies of socio-ecological transition for a sustainable urban metabolism

“…We focus on the concept of "Urban Metabolism" (UM) conceiving it as a set of socially organized physical throughputs characterizing the functioning of a city. UM may be regarded as the organizational structure of resource inputs and outputs, formed by the complex network of stocks and flows necessary to the city's operations (Yan et al, 2020). UM is also a multidisciplinary platform providing tools to explore cities in terms of complex systems shaped by various social, economic and environmental forces (Barles, 2010).…”