Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473

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Environmental Pollution
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envpol

Review

Urban metabolism: A review of research methodologies

Yan Zhang
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Xinjiekouwai Street No. 19,
Beijing 100875, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Urban metabolism analysis has become an important tool for the study of urban ecosystems. The
Received 6 November 2012 problems of large metabolic throughput, low metabolic efficiency, and disordered metabolic processes
Received in revised form are a major cause of unhealthy urban systems. In this paper, I summarize the international research on
30 March 2013
urban metabolism, and describe the progress that has been made in terms of research methodologies. I
Accepted 30 March 2013
also review the methods used in accounting for and evaluating material and energy flows in urban
metabolic processes, simulation of these flows using a network model, and practical applications of these
Keywords:
methods. Based on this review of the literature, I propose directions for future research, and particularly
Urban ecology
Urban metabolism
the need to study the urban carbon metabolism because of the modern context of global climate change.
Process analysis Moreover, I recommend more research on the optimal regulation of urban metabolic systems.
Accounting and assessment Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Model simulation
Optimization and regulation

1. Introduction development and the environment, governments have sought so-

Karl Marx first discussed urban metabolism in 1883, and used
the concept of metabolism to describe the material and energy
exchanges between nature and society in his critique of industri-
alization (Marx, 1981). Later, Wolman (1965) re-launched the urban
metabolism concept in response to deteriorating air and water
qualities in American cities. Because urban metabolic processes are
defined by the artificial and highly aggregated nature of a city, the
metabolic flows of resources that are in short supply lead to un-
sustainable use of these resources, and the inefficient nature of this
artificial system produces metabolites (pollutants) that cannot be
absorbed by the system and that therefore affect human health.
Urban systems also have a large impact on the environment outside
the system because of the heavy pressure they place on that en-
vironment’s resources. Thus, urban metabolism has become the
focus of both academic and government concern.
Many scholars have probed deeply into the theory, methods,
and applications of Marx’s idea, and much relevant research has
been carried out around the world. In 2008, the international
ConAccount conference had “urban metabolism: measuring the
ecological city” as its theme (Havránek, 2009), and attendees
recognized and discussed the worldwide influence of urban
metabolism studies. Facing a need to sustain both socioeconomic
E-mail address: zhangyanyxy@126.com.
lutions to improve the ecological environment of cities despite
their large metabolic demands, with the goal of achieving an “eco-
city” or a “low-carbon city”. This situation provides an opportunity
for the practical application of urban metabolic theory, and this will
promote the development of both academic and practical research.
Because cities are areas of intensive human activities, they face
serious ecological and environmental problems, particularly as a
result of rapid socioeconomic development in countries such as
China. This raises two important questions: As artificial or semi-
artificial systems, can cities be designed to better simulate natural
ecosystems, thereby alleviating their ecological and environmental
problems? If this is feasible, what approaches can be taken to
simulate natural ecosystems? Since there seemed to be no effective
way to control the metabolic problems of cities, some researchers
(Boyden et al., 1981; Girardet, 1992; Tjallingii, 2003; Wolman, 1965)
focused on what they saw as the initiator of the problemsdthe city
itself. They nonetheless believed that it would be appropriate to
analyze the urban system’s operating rules based on ecological
principles and methods. From this perspective, a city can be seen as a
giant organism (a “superorganism”). The cycling mechanisms of a
natural ecosystem can then be simulated for a city to better under-
stand the metabolic processes that underlie the urban system
and that are responsible for its ecological and environmental prob-
lems. Using this knowledge, researchers can find ways to gradually
develop a healthy urban superorganism. Achieving the necessary
insights integrates process analysis, accounting evaluations, and

0269-7491/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.03.052
464 Y. Zhang / Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473
model development and simulation with the goal of finding optimal
regulation mechanisms. This research emphasizes attempts to
describe metabolic pathologies, diagnose metabolic disorders,
explore the etiology of these disorders, and develop treatments for
the disorders (Fig. 1). This research provides support that managers
can use to promote the sustainable development of urban ecosys-
tems, while also advancing the discipline of urban ecology
(Satterthwaite, 1997).
When a city is compared to a living organism in studies of urban
metabolism, all the flows of energy and materials in a biological
organism should be considered. Nutrients (i.e., resources) must be
imported by the city to sustain its metabolism, and the consump-
tion of these nutrients generates metabolites (i.e., wastes or pol-
lutants). If these metabolites cannot be captured to be either reused
or detoxified, they have important adverse effects on the organism
or the organism’s ecological environment (Girardet, 1992; Wolman,
1965). Because cities are artificial systems, they reuse or detoxify
these metabolites less effectively than natural organisms. When a
city grows faster than its managers can cope with this problem, as is
the case in rapidly developing nations such as China, resource
depletion, environmental pollution, ecological damage, and other
issues become increasingly prominent. The fundamental reason for
these problems is a disorder of the urban metabolism (Brunner,
2007; Kennedy et al., 2010; Newman, 1999; Wolman, 1965). This
disorder directly affects the potential for sustainable development
of the city (Baccini, 1997; Barles, 2010). Therefore, innovative
theoretical and methodological research on urban metabolism is
desperately needed. This research must integrate multi-
disciplinary theories and methods from the fields of urban ecol-
ogy, systems ecology, econometrics, and ecological economics
(Rapoport, 2011), and because human activities lie at the root of a
city’s problems, other disciplines such as sociology can contribute
to understanding and solving the problems.
Such research will promote the development of the discipline of
urban ecology and related disciplines and will help urban managers
to solve the ecological and environmental problems that are
fundamental to the urban development process. Furthermore, it
will provide theoretical and methodological support for energy
conservation and emission reduction programs, thereby helping
urban managers to administer the urban ecosystem comprehen-
sively and quantitatively and to achieve the “low-carbon city” and
Fig. 1. Research methodologies used to study urban metabolic systems.
the “ecological city”, as well as to promote the development of a
resource-saving and environment-friendly society.
2. The origins of urban metabolism research
With the accelerated pace of modern industrialization and ur-
banization, the contradictions between urban economic develop-
ment and the ecological environment became increasingly
prominent. When Wolman (1965) used the concept of an “urban
metabolism”, he regarded the city as analogous to an ecosystem,
and described how materials and energy flowed into the system, in
the same way that organisms in an ecosystem consume resources
such as sunlight and food. As a consequence of this resource use,
products are created and wastes are generated by the system. Un-
derstanding the relationship between resource consumption and
the production of products and wastes is the key to understanding
how urban ecosystems persist. When a system cannot obtain the
resources it needs to survive internally (i.e., via primary production,
like that of the plants in a natural ecosystem), it must obtain those
resources from the environment that supports the system. Simi-
larly, if the system cannot absorb the products and wastes gener-
ated by its metabolic activities, those products and wastes must be
detoxified. For an urban ecosystem to function as well as a natural
ecosystem, the wastes generated by resource consumption must be
reused somehow to prevent them from accumulating and harming
the internal and external environments that sustain the system.
Research on urban metabolism therefore focuses on the sources
and consumption of resources, and on their cycling within the
system plus the emission, treatment, and recycling of wastes. After
Wolman, many scholars developed a range of interpretations and
extensions of the concept of urban metabolism. Girardet (1990)
proposed a cyclical urban metabolic model because he realized
that a linear sequence from a city’s input of environmental re-
sources to its generation of products and wastes did not accurately
emulate how real organisms influence Earth’s life-support system.
Brunner (2007) subsequently emphasized the importance of
metabolic processes for a recycling city, and this has been studied
both from a management perspective (Huang et al., 2007) and from
the perspective of metabolic activity (Zhang et al., 2006a). Newman
(1999) combined a model of urban metabolism with a consider-
ation of social factors (e.g., the health of residents, employment
 Y. Zhang / Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473
rates, education) to expand the scope of urban metabolism to
include human factors. Duan (2004) analyzed urban metabolic
processes, and noted that in contrast with a natural metabolism,
urban metabolic pathways are too long and the circulation and
flows of materials and energy are inefficient and incomplete. To
solve these problems, he proposed a theoretical model for urban
metabolism based on modern control theories to simulate the main
factors involved in the urban material metabolism and their re-
lationships, as well as the associated metabolic processes, in order
to provide a scientific basis for optimization and regulation of the
urban material metabolism. He subsequently (Duan, 2005) pro-
posed the concepts of distinct product and waste metabolisms
based on the recognition that products and wastes follow different
flow pathways within the urban system: products are produced
from resource pathways and wastes are processed by waste treat-
ment and recycling pathways. Kennedy et al. (2007) summarized
the process of urban metabolism as a sum of energy production and
waste elimination technologies and of socioeconomic development
processes within the city.
Our understanding of urban metabolic processes has improved
continuously as a result of these studies. In his early research,
Wolman (1965) developed a linear model of urban metabolism that
included input and output processes. Building from that base,
Girardet (1990) proposed a cyclical process of urban metabolism.
One drawback of the Girardet (1990) approach was the use of
“black box” models, in which the inner details of each component of
the system are unknown. Zhang et al. (2009a) tried to improve on
the black-box model by proposing a network process for urban
metabolism (Fig. 2). On this basis, her research team has proposed
descriptions of endosomatic and exosomatic metabolic processes
based on insights from studies of biological metabolism and based
on the theory of complex urban ecosystems (Li et al., 2010). They
have analyzed the metabolic processes of input, transformation,
cycling, and output of materials and energy from a top-down
perspective. They then integrated two aspects of the metabolic
processes, namely the metabolic stages (i.e., anabolism, catabolism,
regulated metabolism) and metabolic objects (i.e., resources and
wastes that flow within the system), from a bottom-up perspective
(Li, 2011).
Other scholars have approached urban systems from a very
different perspective. For example, some have studied the insights
provided by industrial metabolism (Anderberg, 1998; Ayres, 1994;
Bailey et al., 2004a, 2004b; Yang et al., 2011) and household
metabolism (Liu et al., 2004; Newman et al., 1996; Sahely et al.,
2003; Yang et al., 2012). These researchers analyzed the material
and energy flows in industries and households, and the resulting
Fig. 2. The evolution of models of the processes that define an urban metabolism.
465
environmental impacts. Because of the complexity of such studies,
other scholars have focused on the metabolism of a single flow,
thereby permitting a more profound understanding of that flow.
Common examples include water metabolism (Baccini and
Brunner, 1991; Tambo, 2002; Zhang et al., 2010a) and energy
metabolism (Huang, 1998; Zhang et al., 2010b, 2011a; Zucchetto,
1975).
Boyden et al. (1981) studied Hong Kong’s metabolic status from
the perspective of the lifestyle of the residents. They described the
mechanisms by which people adapt to potentially stressful condi-
tions, such as the extraordinarily high population densities, as well
as the limits to human adaptability, by considering factors that
included housing, population, air pollution, mortality, health, well-
being, crime, and the future of human settlement in the city.
Newman (1999) noted that the metabolism approach to cities is a
purely biological view, but that cities are more than a mechanism
for processing resources and producing wastes; they are also about
creating human opportunity. He therefore developed an extended
model of the metabolism of human settlements that also included
livability. Schiller (2009) linked material and energy flow analyses
with social theory by exploring the potential of “communicative
action” to alter the social reflexivity (which refers to the bidirec-
tional consequences of any cause or effect) of material and energy
flow analysis.
Other scholars have attempted to make metabolic studies
spatially explicit by considering the interactions between an urban
metabolism and the spatial distribution of land use and cover types
(Huang and Chen, 2009; Huang et al., 2006b; Idrus et al., 2008;
Krausmann et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2009; Liu, 2010b; Marull et al.,
2010). They analyzed these relationships in both directions: the
extent to which urban metabolism can affect land use and cover
type change, and the extent to which land use and cover change can
affect urban metabolism.
These studies of additional perspectives (e.g., industrial and
household metabolisms, single metabolic flows, and spatially
explicit models) has enriched and expanded the early research on
urban metabolism.
3. Accounting and assessment
The urban metabolism approach has been widely adopted as a
framework because it provides an effective way to gain information
on energy efficiency, recycling of materials, waste management,
and the infrastructure characteristics of an urban system (Kennedy
et al., 2007). It is also an effective means to quantify the inputs of
energy, water, food, and other materials, as well as waste outputs
(Sahely et al., 2003). It can be used to account for and assess the
scale and potential extent of recycling of food, water, energy, and
materials through the urban system (Weisz and Steinberger, 2010).
The two main accounting and assessment methods for urban
metabolism are based on an analysis of material and energy flows,
thereby tracing the input, storage, transformation, and output
processes (Hendriks et al., 2000). Material flow analysis begins with
classification of the various material flows, and concludes with a
balance sheet that accounts for all of these flows. If a sufficient
quantity of reliable statistical data is available, the method allows
researchers to monitor the flow of materials throughout their entire
life cycle within the urban system (Brunner, 2004; Fischer-
Kowalski, 1998; Li et al., 2008; Tao, 2003). When Wolman (1965)
first proposed the concept of urban metabolism, he carried out an
accounting-based analysis of a hypothetical American city with
millions of people. Using national utilization rates for water, food,
and fuels, as well as national production rates for wastewater, solid
wastes, and air pollutants, he calculated the per capita inputs and
outputs throughout the city. He validated the material flows using a
466 Y. Zhang / Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473
top-down method, which helped him focus on the consumption of
goods and production of wastes by the urban system. He found that
when the city expanded to a certain extent, environmental prob-
lems such as an insufficient water supply, difficult wastewater
treatment, and air pollution emerged. Although this model of an
urban metabolism was simplistic, it was nonetheless an important
and useful early attempt to provide objective data to support urban
planning and policy development.
Ayres and Kneese (1969) expanded on this research by per-
forming the first examination of the U.S. from 1963 to 1965 and
analyzing material flows of the American economic system at a
national level. They believed that economic activities should be
based on environmental resources that have no market price and
that are increasingly scarce, such as clean air and water. However,
they could not apply Pareto-optimal rules for market-based allo-
cation of environmental resources due to the existence of exter-
nalities. Despite this limitation, they developed a general
equilibrium model that accounted for externalities to some extent.
They developed a formal mathematical framework for tracing the
flow of residues in the economy and related it to a general equi-
librium model of resource allocation, altered to accommodate
recycling and containing unpriced sectors to represent the envi-
ronment. Their formulation implied knowledge of all preference
and production functions, including the relationships between
discharge of residues and the external cost of this discharge. Their
success prompted additional research to apply the concept of
metabolism to identifying economic structures and determining
the environmental impacts that result from these structures.
However, the problem of externalities has not yet been solved in
urban metabolism studies.
Inspired by this work, Newcombe et al. (1978) studied the
metabolism of Hong Kong in terms of the nature of the inputs of an
urban settlement; its transportation networks; the capacity of its
natural and man-made circulatory systems; and the generation,
disposal, and resource potential of its wastes. Warren-Rhodes and
Koenig (2001) reanalyzed the metabolic system of Hong Kong
from the perspective of trends in resource consumption and waste
generation. They evaluated per capita consumption of food, water,
and materials, total air emissions, CO2 outputs, output of municipal
solid wastes, and sewage discharge. In contrast with the 1978
research results, they found that Hong Kong’s economic growth
was achieved at a high environmental cost.
In these early stages of urban metabolism research, researchers
mostly adopted the method of accounting for material flows, and
the results have been applied to the design and management of
many cities (Ayres and Kneese, 1969; Fischer-Kowalski, 1998;
Fischer-Kowalski and Hüttler, 1999). These include Tokyo (Hanya
and Ambe, 1976), Brussels (Duvigneaud, 1974), Tangshan (Cui
et al., 1986), Dali (Du, 1988), St. Gallen (Baccini and Brunner,
1991), Sydney (Newman and Kenworthy, 1999; Newman et al.,
1996), Vienna (Hendriks et al., 2000), Trinket Island (Singh et al.,
2001), Manchester (Douglas et al., 2002), Pittsburgh (Tarr, 2002),
Hamburg (Hammer et al., 2003), Toronto (Forkes, 2007; Kennedy,
2002; Sahely et al., 2003), Shenzhen (Yan et al., 2003; Zhang and
Yang, 2007), Tipperary (Browne et al., 2005), Linköping (Neset
and Lohm, 2005), Shanghai (Huang and Zhu, 2007; Wang, 2005;
Zhang et al., 2008), Los Angeles (Ngo and Pataki, 2008), Qingdao
(Wang et al., 2006; Zhou, 2006), Changzhou (Huang et al., 2006a),
Singapore (Schulz, 2007), Taipei (Huang and Chen, 2009; Huang
and Hsu, 2003; Huang et al., 2007), Guiyang (Xu et al., 2004),
Nantong (Yu and Huang, 2005), Tianjin (Liu et al., 2006), Paris
(Barles, 2007, 2009), Handan (Lou, 2007; Lou and Shi, 2008a,
2008b), Limerick (Browne et al., 2009, 2011), Lisbon (Niza et al.,
2009), Budapest (Pomazi and Szabo, 2009), Palermo (Femia and
Falcitelli, 2009), Dalian (Bao, 2010), and Suzhou (Liang and Zhang,
2011, 2012). Researchers have also compared individual cities
with other cities from the same country or from around the world.
These studies include comparisons of 25 large cities from around
the world (Decker et al., 2000), 5 coastal cities (Timmerman and
White, 1997), 8 cities (Kennedy et al., 2007), 19 typical Chinese
cities (Li et al., 2007), 79 Irish cities (Moles et al., 2008), European
cities (Schremmer and Stead, 2009), and 34 Chinese cities (Liu,
2010a). Such comparisons offer an effective tool to support
resource and environmental management because they can both
identify efficiency problems in resource utilization at an early stage
and contribute to the development of effective resource and envi-
ronmental management policies.
To account for the importance of energy, Haberl (1997) pio-
neered the concept of “energy metabolism”. He pointed out that
metabolic research could provide a more detailed understanding of
urban metabolism only if it included energy flow analysis. At that
time, there was a growing consensus that material and energy
flows should have equal status in urban metabolism research and
that both should be studied with equal intensity. Haberl (2001a)
subsequently modified the analytical framework for material
flows by proposing indicators similar to those that are used in
material flow analysis, such as human appropriation of net primary
production, which measures the impact of land use change and
biomass harvesting on energy or carbon flows in terrestrial eco-
systems. Based on this modified approach, he established an energy
metabolic method (Haberl, 2001a). This breakthrough let subse-
quent scholars study the modernization of socioeconomic systems
from the perspective of energy metabolism. Such studies included
the following areas: Ann Arbor (Melaina and Keoleian, 2001),
Austria (Haberl, 2001b; Krausmann and Haberl, 2002), Southeast
Asia (Haberl, 2001b), 15 countries in the European Union as well as
the U.S. (Haberl et al., 2006), the world (Haberl, 2006), Barcelona’s
Montjuıc Urban Park (Oliver-Solà et al., 2007), 79 Irish settlements
(Moles et al., 2008), the Czech Republic (Kuskova et al., 2008),
Prague (Fikar and Havránek, 2009), Vienna (Krausmann, 2011), and
Xiamen (Zhao, 2012).
Based on the results of this energy flow research, some scholars
proposed a modification of the method of ecological energy
metabolism based on emergy, which represents “embodied en-
ergy” (Odum, 1971, 1976, 1983, 1987, 1996), or exergy, which rep-
resents the amount of useful work that can be performed by the
energy in a system (Chen, 2005, 2006; Jørgensen, 2002; Jørgensen
and Mejer, 1977; Jørgensen et al., 1995). An advantage of emergy
and exergy accounting is that both approaches allow researchers to
combine flows of materials with different units of measurement
(e.g., masses or volumes of physical materials, the energy content of
fuels, flows of money and information) to produce an integrated
analysis that accounts for all flows. In this approach, researchers
account for material and energy flows by converting all flows into a
unified objective function (based on exergy or emergy) and use
these integrated flows to analyze the metabolism of socioeconomic
systems. Areas studied using this approach included Miami
(Zucchetto, 1975), Castelnuovo Berardenga (Balocco et al., 2004),
Taipei (Huang, 1998; Huang and Chen, 2009; Huang and Hsu, 2003;
Huang et al., 2007), Beijing (Liu et al., 2010, 2011a, 2011c, 2011d,
2011e; Zhang and Yang, 2007; Zhang et al., 2009a, 2009b, 2009c,
2011c), Macao (Lei and Wang, 2008), 31 typical Chinese cities (Liu
et al., 2011b), a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province (Yao et al.,
2010), Wuyishan (Yang et al., 2011), and Guangzhou (Wu and Yan,
2011a).
The most important challenges to material flow analysis and
energy flow analysis are that the sustainability of a system cannot
be judged, and this sustainability can only be evaluated based on a
horizontal comparison of different spatial units and a vertical
comparison of different times. Therefore, the inability to judge the
 Y. Zhang / Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473
degree of sustainability (high or low) and assess the changes (in-
crease or decrease) in sustainability is an important deficiency of
material flow analysis and energy flow analysis compared with
alternatives such as the ecological footprint method that can be
used to evaluate the ecological sustainability of a system (Table 1).
Other scholars have characterized urban metabolisms using the
ecological footprint method (Dakhia and Berezowska-Azzag, 2010;
Kenny and Gray, 2009; Novotny, 2010; Sovacool and Brown, 2009;
Wackernagel et al., 2006). Based on a matrix that linked con-
sumption with land use, they analyzed the urban metabolism in
terms of the ability of each land area to provide one or more re-
sources and the pressure exerted on each land area by the con-
sumption activities that it supports. Areas studied using this
approach included Liverpool (Barrett and Scott, 2001), London
(Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, 2002; Girardet,
1993), Cape Town (Gasson, 2002), Cardiff (Collins et al., 2005),
and Paris (Chatzimpiros and Barles, 2009).
One problem with any accounting method is the availability of a
sufficient quantity of reliable data. When this data was not available
for all or most of a city’s metabolic flows, some scholars have
tracked the flows of specific elements for which suitable data was
available and used those flows as a proxy for other flows or to focus
on the flows of a key resource. Such studies included accounting for
the flows of iron, titanium, and vanadium in the Dukou (Panzhihua)
region (Chen et al., 1983); of lead in Vienna (Obernosterer and
Brunner, 2001); of heavy metals in Stockholm (Cui et al., 2009;
Hedbrant, 2001); of nitrogen in Toronto (Forkes, 2007), Phoenix
(Baker et al., 2001), and Paris (Barles, 2007; Billen et al., 2009); of
copper in Cape Town (van Beers and Graedel, 2003) and Tongling
(Wang et al., 2011b); and of phosphorus in Hefei (Li et al., 2011).
Because of growing concerns over climate change, some
scholars have adopted these approaches to study the carbon
metabolism of urban systems (e.g., Karakiewicz, 2011; Kennedy
et al., 2010, 2011; Minx et al., 2011; Sovacool and Brown, 2009;
Wiedmann and Minx, 2007). These studies have included the Swiss
Lowland area (Baccini, 1996), Munich (Pauleit and Duhme, 2000),
10 cities from around the world (Kennedy et al., 2010), Xiamen (Ye
et al., 2011), and Barcelona (Villalba and Gemechu, 2011).
Besides accounting for the metabolic fluxes, other approaches
have studied the intensity and efficiency of human-dominated
metabolic activities in an urban system and have performed envi-
ronmental impact assessments (Liu et al., 2011e; Warren-Rhodes
and Koenig, 2001; Yan et al., 2003; Yu and Huang, 2005; Zhang
et al., 2006b). Such studies have examined metabolic efficiency
(Liu, 2010a, 2010b; Zhang and Yang, 2007; Zhang et al., 2008),
Table 1
Comparison of the main accounting methods.
Method Merits
Material flow analysis Measuring the inflows and outflows of a city’s materials is
an effective way to support resource and environmental
management. Tracking hidden material flows can be used to
improve the description of the pressures on the environment.
Emergy (energy flow) This method ensures that the energy that underlies the
analysis creation and flow of all materials is accounted for along
with the materials, and accounts for differences in the
quality of the materials and energy.
Ecological footprint Combining the socioeconomic development demands with
analysis the ecological environment’s supply capacity lets researchers
determine the ecological deficit or surplus. This can help to
reflect the complementary relationship between natural
capital and socioeconomic development, and can reveal
ecologically unsustainable situations.
467
metabolic capacity (Zhang et al., 2009c), and drive-pressure-state-
impact-response models (Garcia et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2013b).
4. Models and simulation
Urban metabolism studies were originally limited to black-box
models and inputeoutput accounting. However, decades of
research have shown the limitations of these approaches and the
constraints they place on researchers. Thus, a major research pri-
ority has been to escape the black-box model and quantitatively
analyze metabolic aspects such as production, consumption, and
circulation within and among the components of an urban
ecosystem. This approach also permits the development of more
sophisticated system simulation models that can reveal the evo-
lution of ecological processes, the mechanisms responsible for
environmental and other impacts, and the internal mechanisms
that determine how a system functions (Wang et al., 2011a).
Simulation models include ecological dynamics models, ecological
network models, inputeoutput analysis models, and process
models (Table 2).
Dramatically improved computer technology has also permitted
the development and use of models of ecological dynamics, and
these models have become an important tool for simulating flows
of materials and energy within an urban metabolic system. Most of
these studies have used the emergy terminology of Odum (1996)
and have based their models on a careful description of the sys-
tem’s structure and of causality (i.e., the reasons for and conse-
quences of flows). These models have sometimes included the
evolution of the ecological thermodynamics of the system, thereby
increasing the realism of the simulation. Finally, researchers
sometimes use models to seek an optimal system structure and
optimal functioning (Jørgensen, 2000). For instance, interactions
among variables have been explored from the perspective of urban
metabolism for Taipei (Huang and Chen, 2005; Lee et al., 2009),
Beijing (Liu et al., 2012a), Macao (Lei and Wang, 2008), and
Guangzhou (Wu and Yan, 2011a, 2011b). Some scholars have
simulated the mechanisms that influence metabolic processes (Liu
et al., 2012b; Zhang et al., 2011d, 2013a). These studies have mainly
concentrated on urban carbon metabolism. They introduced the
factor-decomposition method to decompose the energy and carbon
metabolic processes into the factors that drive GDP, economic
structure parameters, energy intensity, and the energy mix
required to sustain a flow. They have then incorporated these fac-
tors in simulation models. Using such models, researchers have
examined the direction in which the parameters move the system,
Drawbacks
Adding the weight of different materials directly increases the substitution
of resources, and ignores the quality differences among materials. Ignoring
the important role of energy flows is a crucial omission because these flows
drive all material flows throughout the urban metabolic process. This
approach is unable to judge the degree of sustainability and the changes
in sustainability.
Appropriate energy transformation rates must be determined for all
flows, and the methods of accounting for wastes have not been unified.
The use of a single land function neglects other potentially important
functions and the functional diversity of the land (i.e., its ability to provide
multiple services). In addition, the selection criteria for the ecological
supply area have not been unified, and the method relies on an incomplete
description of the resources provided by the natural system and the wastes
eliminated by the natural system, thereby underestimating the magnitude
of the human impacts.
468 Y. Zhang / Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473

Table 2
Comparison of the main urban metabolism simulation methods.

Model type Approach Drawbacks

Ecological dynamics Constructing descriptions of causal feedback relations to analyze
the operation and evolution trends of an urban metabolic system
in chronological order, and combining the elements of society, the
economy, and nature to simulate the evolution trend of the urban
metabolic system.
Ecological network Through the methods of flow, utility, and path analysis, researchers
analysis quantitatively simulate the structure and functional relationships
among components of the system.
Inputeoutput Combining economic elements with material- and energy-flow
analysis analysis allows the construction of environmental inputeoutput
tables, which can help to refine our understanding of the actors
in urban metabolic processes.
Process analysis Provides a life-cycle accounting for resource use and the associated
environmental impacts from extraction of the original raw materials
to disposal of the final wastes.
Unifying the flow processes for multiple ecological elements
quantitatively is problematic because there is no unified accounting
method. Thus, researchers have mostly focused on simulating the
metabolic processes for a single element. The emergy simulation
studies that combine many elements cannot account well for wastes,
and there are therefore deficiencies in the ecological dynamics models.
The lack of flows among networks in a socioeconomic system makes
it difficult to refine the sectors of the network, and the ecological
connotation of simulating the network structure require additional
analysis. In addition, such analyses require large amounts of data,
and the data is often unavailable or of questionable quality.
On an urban scale, it’s necessary to obtain data from the provinces
and countries that engage in exchanges with the urban area to
quantify differences in the inputs or imported products or technologies
embodied in services. The combination of material and energy flows
with inputeoutput tables is difficult; although it is possible to account
for the exchanges among sectors because of limited availability of data
on material and energy flows (which must be accounted for using
economic (capital) matrices), the result remains a rough simulation.
Large quantities of data are required, and this may be prohibitively
expensive or time-consuming to obtain. In addition, the results may
be precise for a given study area, but cannot be generalized to other
areas.

and the magnitude of the impact. Using this approach, researchers
have analyzed 4 Chinese municipalities (Liu et al., 2012b), 30 Chi-
nese provinces (Zhang et al., 2011d, 2012a), and Shanghai (Guo,
2009), among other areas.
To analyze endogenous mechanisms, network analysis is
increasingly being adopted to simulate the structure and function
of a metabolic system. Hannon (1973) pioneered the use of
ecological network analysis (ENA) based on inputeoutput tech-
niques to simulate the structural distribution of ecosystem com-
ponents and the complex interrelationships between different
trophic levels. Finn (1976) improved Hannon’s method by using
total system throughflow, average path length, and a cycling index
to quantify the ecosystem structure and function derived from the
analysis of flows. Based on the interdependence among the
different components of an ecosystem, which can be described in
terms of the flows of materials and energy, Patten (1982) refined
the traditional ENA method. He proposed the concept of analysis
based on an “environ”, which was his terminology for the within-
system environment. An object’s environ ends at the system’s
boundary. Exchanges across the boundary with the external envi-
ronment are deemed inputs and outputs, depending on the flow
direction. The basis of this method is to establish an ecological
network flow diagram that indicates the relative amounts of ma-
terial and energy flows between components of the system through
direct and indirect relationships (Levine, 1980; Patten, 1982; Suh,
2005). Szyrmer and Ulanowicz (1987) extended the analysis of
material and energy flows by defining a matrix of total flows, which
provides a more convenient starting point for such tasks as sensi-
tivity analyses, description of the cycles, identification of key
components of the system, optimal resource reallocation, and
definition of the trophic status. They also described the differences
between ENA and inputeoutput analysis from the perspective of
the differences between economics and ecology. Specifically, they
noted that economists are primarily interested in what leaves a
system (i.e., the final outputs or the demand that drives those
outputs), whereas ecologists are more interested in the total effect
that the output from component i of a system has on the total
output of component j. Patten’s (1982) environ analysis resembled
structural path analysis (Defourny and Thorbecke, 1984) and the
ENA framework attempted to integrate the framework of Ghosh
(1958) rather than that of Leontief (1941), which had been the
general approach used previously in inputeoutput economics (e.g.,
Pauly and Christensen, 1995). The Ghosh (1958) framework is a
supply-driven model based on an input-side balance, whereas the
Leontief (1941) framework is a demand-driven model based on an
output-side balance.
ENA simulates material and energy flows through an ecosystem
from a holistic perspective. It is therefore an effective method for
analyzing the structure and function of a system (Fath and Killian,
2007; Levine, 1980; Patten, 1982; Szyrmer and Ulanowicz, 1987).
Currently, it is applied in research on natural ecosystems (Baird
et al., 2009; Borrett et al., 2007; Christian et al., 2009; Dame and
Christian, 2008; Gattie et al., 2006; Heymans et al., 2002; Jordán
et al., 2009) more often than in research on socioeconomic sys-
tems (Chen, 2003; Chen et al., 2010a; Zhang et al., 2012b, 2012c).
However, it has been applied to the overall metabolism of Beijing
(Li et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2009a); the water
metabolism of a small municipality in northern Italy (Bodini and
Bondavalli, 2002), of China’s Yellow River Basin (Li et al., 2009),
and of Beijing (Zhang et al., 2010a); the energy metabolism of
Xiamen (Zhao, 2006) and of four Chinese municipalities (Zhang
et al., 2010b, 2011a, 2011b); the carbon metabolism of Hong Kong
(Chen and Chen, 2012a) and of Vienna (Chen and Chen, 2012b); and
the phosphorus (Wu and Shi, 2010a) and nitrogen (Wu and Shi,
2010b) metabolisms of the Yixing economic development zone.
In simulation models of an urban metabolism, it is necessary to
divide metabolic actors into increasingly precise compartments
such as sectors of the economy and to clarify metabolic flows
among the compartments. The inputeoutput analysis method
makes this possible. Most urban metabolic research now defines
metabolic actors based on economic sectors in the inputeoutput
tables. Furthermore, the research estimates the material and en-
ergy flows based on the flows of economic value between urban
metabolism sectors; in China, this data can be obtained from the
Chinese inputeoutput tables, which are only compiled as economic
values.
Network models have typically defined the structure of the
system, the processes that define the flows among the system’s
structural compartments, and the quantity of each flow. In the
1970s, the inputeoutput analysis method was widely applied to
 Y. Zhang / Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473
describe the flow of resources such as water (Hite and Laurent,
1971), energy (Berry and Fels, 1973; Chapman, 1974; Cleveland
et al., 1984; Herendeen, 1978; Wright, 1974), and natural re-
sources (Wright, 1975). The resource flows were reflected in the
process of calculating the transmission of economic value flows.
Such research has included a description of the distribution of
ecological elements among industrial sectors within a system
(Chen et al., 2010b) and the utilization of ecological elements
relevant to a single product (Sun et al., 2012). This approach is also
known as environmental inputeoutput analysis. Such studies have
included Suzhou (Liang and Zhang, 2012), Lisbon (Rosado and
Ferrão, 2009), and Beijing (Liu and Zhang, 2012; Zhou et al.,
2010). Some scholars using economic inputeoutput analysis to
establish embodied ecological elements have developed equilib-
rium equations to compute the quantities of embodied ecological
elements flowing to both intermediate and final consumption
goods (Chen, 2011; Chen and Chen, 2010; Chen and Zhang, 2010;
Chen et al., 2010b; Costanza, 1980; Costanza and Herendeen, 1984;
Herendeen, 1978; Zhou et al., 2010).
This approach resembles the older method of process analysis
that was adopted in previous studies (Bullard and Herendeen, 1975;
Bullard et al., 1978; Hannon, 1974). In process analysis, researchers
trace the key processes related to the generation of a product in as
much detail as possible. The quantity of the inputs of initial
ecological elements in each process can then be used to approxi-
mate the quantity of ecological elements consumed to generate the
product. This method therefore traces all details of the production
process from a micro-scale perspective (Chen, 2011). However,
inputeoutput analysis is a system-oriented method that considers
coupling among the different structures within the system, and this
makes the method more suitable for analyses that examine the
flows of ecological elements through an economic system from a
macro-scale perspective (Chen, 2010). This also better supports
research on the sectoral distribution of ecological elements (Proops
et al., 1992; Wier et al., 2001).
5. Suggestions for future research
Although urban metabolism theory has advanced greatly during
the past half century, there are four major areas in which additional
research is required:
1. Strengthen the analysis of carbon-related metabolic processes
to account for the impact of urban metabolisms on global
climate change
Although carbon flows are implicitly considered within flows of
materials such as fuels and food, climate change has made it
increasingly necessary to explicitly examine these flows. In
particular, human activities should be integrated with natural car-
bon metabolic processes to define carbon sources and sinks within
an urban system, as well as the factors that influence the carbon-
related processes at various spatial and temporal scales. The
changes in carbon metabolic fluxes in the artificial urban system
should be compared with those in natural ecosystems. By inte-
grating this analysis with a consideration of urban land use and
cover type changes, it will become possible to discuss the trends for
carbon metabolic fluxes during the process of urban expansion.
To accomplish this objective, researchers must first actively
promote research on ways to describe and quantify carbon meta-
bolic fluxes in an urban system as well as the underlying mecha-
nisms, such as energy utilization and food consumption. Second,
researchers must study the relationships between these fluxes and
land use and cover type change. Such research will provide insights
into the urban system’s ability to absorb and release carbon,
469
particularly as a result of the replacement of vegetated and other
natural areas by built-up land, and the associated changes in soil
properties. Understanding the nature of these fluxes before and
after land use change will let managers understand and plan to
compensate for these impacts.
2. Optimize urban metabolic networks by regulating their
processes
Because urban metabolic systems are hybrids of natural and
artificial structures, they are inefficient compared with natural
systems. Thus, research is necessary to find ways to optimize and
regulate these systems to increase their efficiency. Currently,
system optimization is mostly based on the use of multi-
objective methods that establish a series of constraints that
define viable solutions capable of meeting the optimization ob-
jectives. Optimal regulation of an urban metabolic system starts
with research on the mechanisms that govern interactions
among the components of the system’s structure and the func-
tioning of the system. Based on the results of this research, it
becomes possible to identify and regulate key nodes and
important processes, as well as the paths between these nodes
and the fluxes in each process.
For optimal regulation of an urban metabolic system, re-
searchers must better define the nodes of the system, the paths
between them, and the fluxes along those paths. First, researchers
must identify the key nodes in the network. A good approach is to
introduce the use of an index of centrality such as those used in
social network analysis, since this can clearly identify the dominant
nodes in a network. This will provide scientific support for deter-
mining which components of the network are most in need of
optimized regulation. It can also identify the nodes that have the
capacity to locally gather and control resources, and can thereby
reveal the key nodes that should be optimized and regulated.
Second, optimized regulation of network paths will require the
identification of ways to set up “channels” and “bridges” within the
system to decrease “friction” that impedes metabolic processes;
channels and bridges decrease friction by providing alternative
paths between nodes, thereby allowing managers to regulate in-
creases or decreases in fluxes and change the direction of the fluxes
along these paths. Such analyses will reveal bottlenecks in the
overall network development based on changes in the structural
parameters, such as network density and the average distance
among nodes. They will also reveal whether it is necessary to in-
crease or decrease the number of paths connected to a node and the
number of paths within the overall network. Such analyses may
also reveal ways to link sub-networks by increasing the metabolic
channels and bridges among them, thereby reducing metabolic
impediments.
Third, optimized regulation of network flows should be based
on dynamic ecosystem models that allow the tracking of particles
(i.e., a specific input or output that is part of the overall group of
inputs or outputs) and the tracking of links (i.e., quantifying the
network flows using qualitative nodeelink digraphs). The model
must let researchers adjust its key parameters based on empirical
data and set up scenarios to test the impacts of management
changes. Researchers can also support managers by developing and
validating a prioritization scheme based on network analysis in-
dicators. Scenarios can then be established to predict the effects of
changes in the flow distribution among nodes of the network. Last
but not least, researchers can use flow and utility analysis to
confirm functional relationships within the network and the ra-
tionality of the network’s ecological hierarchy. By combining these
approaches, it should be possible to identify scenarios that lead to
an optimal regulation scheme.
470 Y. Zhang / Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 463e473
3. More research is necessary to understand the impact of human
factors on the metabolic flows of an urban system. Current
research has focused on quantifying these flows, but without
understanding why people favor one flow path over another or
why they fail to create links between different compartments
of the urban system that could benefit from these flows, it is
difficult to find ways to regulate the system and improve its
health.
4. The problem of externalities and unpriced values has not yet
been solved. Thus, there is a need for new methodologies that
will let researchers incorporate externalities in the models and
simulations.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Program for New Century
Excellent Talents in University (no. NCET-12-0059), the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41171068 and 40701004),
by the National Science Foundation for Innovative Research Group
(no. 51121003), by the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Inno-
vative Research Team in University (no. IRT0809), by the Special
Fund of State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and
Pollution Control of China (no. 10Z02ESPCN), and by the Funda-
mental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
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