Urban Metabolism of Copper: The Case of Taipei City
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Lin, Chih-Yi
Abstract
Cities are social and economic hubs with escalating population density and intensive human activities which induce the enormous demand for service and goods, making urban areas the dominant hotspots of natural resource depletion. Research at an urban level with certain substance then becomes crucial to decision makers especially in terms of environment protection and resource conservation.
The objective of this study is to construct an appropriate urban metabolism system to acquire detailed substance flows within a city to assist the evaluation of the current status and formulation of proper strategies. The method of substance flow analysis (SFA) is used to quantify the turnover of substance within specific spatial and temporal system boundaries, as Taipei City for the year 2009; the element copper is selected for being potential resource exhaustion. Also, the Hedbrant and Sörme (HS) method and Monte Carlo simulation are applied to examine the data extrapolation error and uncertainty.
The generic process-oriented system for national level SFA is insufficient in providing the high resolution data required at an urban level. Hence, a new four-layered substance-oriented system which covers the interactions between anthroposphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and pedosphere is established.
Result shows that 30,000 tons of copper (11kg per capita) was consumed in Taipei City 2009, with the bulk flows construction material (45% of the total inflow) and consumer goods (55%). A gap between the inflow and outflow indicates the existence of unidentified flows or even illegal disposal, which might be the highlight of further policy-making and related issues such as urban mining in resource management.
Subjects
urban metabolism
substance flow analysis
copper
Type
thesis
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