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ISSN:2325-6192 (print)
ISSN:2325-6206 (online)
Journal of Environmental Accounting and Management
António Mendes Lopes (editor), Jiazhong Zhang(editor)
António Mendes Lopes (editor)

University of Porto, Portugal

Email: aml@fe.up.pt

Jiazhong Zhang (editor)

School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710049, China

Fax: +86 29 82668723 Email: jzzhang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

The Urban Metabolism of the City of Uppsala (Sweden)

Journal of Environmental Accounting and Management 2(1) (2014) 1--12 | DOI:10.5890/JEAM.2014.03.001

Tommaso Russo$^{1}$, Elvira Buonocore$^{1}$, Pier Paolo Franzese$^{2}$

$^{1}$ Laboratory of Ecodynamics and Sustainable Development, Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, Italy

$^{2}$ Industrial Ecology Programme, Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

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Abstract

Urban systems can be considered like living organisms supplied by mate- rial and energy flows used to maintain structures an functions, and the production of goods and services. In this paper, we integrate economic cost analysis with a method of biophysical accounting (namely Emergy Synthesis) to assess the main inputs and output flows characterizing the urban metabolism of the city of Uppsala (Sweden). Natural and human- driven resource flows supporting the metabolism of the city were evalu- ated and compared by using an ecological-economics perspective. Final- ly, economic and emergy-based indicators were calculated and discussed. Results highlighted a lack of self-sufficiency characterizing most of mod- ern cities especially in terms of food andenergy supplied from larger environmental systems. Considering the existing problems of environ- mental sustainability of most cities and the current trend towards urbani- zation, the proposed multi-criteria assessment to the study of urban me- tabolism, further improved by a deeper investigation of social variables, can represent an important component of sustainability research and poli-Cy.

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