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The Characteristics and Trends of Socioeconomic Metabolism in China

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  • Tiejun Dai
  • Wanjun Wang

Abstract

China has become the country with the largest resource use and has high levels of waste emissions that pose a great management challenge. To provide more details about environmental problems and to find effective solutions, this article analyzed the scale, structure, and trend of the socioeconomic metabolism in China during the period 1992–2014 based on economy‐wide material flow accounts (EW‐MFA), and predicted resource use during the period of the 13th Five‐Year Plan. The results of this study show that the scale of China's socioeconomic metabolism in China increased more than twofold, during 1992–2014. However, after 2011, with the economic slowdown, the growth rates of total material requirement (TMR), direct material input (DMI), and domestic processed output (DPO) began to decrease. China may reach an inflection point, but this point will probably not be approached before the year 2020. Material recycling (MR) has played an important role in improving resource productivity, improving it by 92.52 renminbi per tonne in 2014. Metallic minerals and fossil fuels are the main sources of hidden flow. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, construction waste, and agricultural emissions have become the major sources of DPO. Because of the 13th Five‐Year Plan, China may slow the growth rate of DMI and may save 10.26 gigatonnes of resources during 2015–2020. Resource productivity is predicted to increase by 15.91%. Imports and MR may play more important roles. These suggestions are made: (1) strengthening the recycling system; (2) stronger policies, especially in metallic mineral and fossil fuels; (3) developing management systems for CO2 emissions, construction waste, and agricultural emissions; and (4) adjusting China's economic structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Tiejun Dai & Wanjun Wang, 2018. "The Characteristics and Trends of Socioeconomic Metabolism in China," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 22(5), pages 1228-1240, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:22:y:2018:i:5:p:1228-1240
    DOI: 10.1111/jiec.12659
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    2. Euclides Santos Bittencourt & Cristiano Hora de Oliveira Fontes & Jorge Laureano Moya Rodriguez & Salvador Ávila Filho & Adonias Magdiel Silva Ferreira, 2020. "Modeling the Socioeconomic Metabolism of End-of-Life Tires Using Structural Equations: A Brazilian Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-28, March.
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    4. Jingru Liu & Haotong Wu & Xin Tian & Heming Wang & Yinglei Wu, 2022. "Materials footprint of household consumption in China," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(4), pages 1504-1513, August.
    5. Minghao Xu & Dingjiang Chen & Yadong Yu & Zengbo Chen & Yupeng Zhang & Bomin Liu & Yike Fu & Bing Zhu, 2021. "Assessing resource consumption at the subnational level: A novel accounting method based on provincial selected material consumption," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(3), pages 580-592, June.

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