Eco NW - Tools & methods
Modeling, analysis, visualization and data sources
Material flows methods
A Material Flow Analysis (MFA looks at the material inputs to a region, in terms of raw materials and products, and at outputs in terms of waste and emissions, plus any changes in stocks.
While the data has many gaps, there is enough to at least provide an outline 5-stage model of the UK and regional economy in material flow terms, as in the chart.
- The framework is organized in a 5 stage process, corresponding roughly to the primary, secondary, tertiary, demand and 'externalities' classification of economic sectors
- Various kinds of waste streams are shown in green by the shaded boxes on the right hand side, coming off each of the stages
- Various inputs of energy and transport are shown in yellow at each of the 5 stages
- The 'products in use' circle shows the effect of infrastructure such as vehicles or buildings
- Resource productivity, i.e the useful outputs per unit of input, can be measured at each stage of the production chain, in the context of the mapping above at Fig 2-4
