Assessment and mapping of material-energy flows

Once the scale of application of the industrial and territorial ecology approach has been defined, the second step is to draw up a balance sheet and a map of material and energy flows. The so-called "industrial metabolism" study is a decisive step. A detailed inventory of all the biophysical components of an industrial system enables us to draw up a "map of physical flows".

This specifically analytical and descriptive phase involves applying the principle of a balance sheet of material and energy flows and stocks transiting through the system under consideration.

Specialists will invoke the term "industrial metabolism" in reference to ecologists' terminology, and use what is commonly known as an analysis of material-energy flows (AFME).

The aim is to understand the dynamics of system operation, from the origin of...