Anthropogenic metabolism, also referred to as metabolism of the anthroposphere, is a term used in industrial ecology, material flow analysis, and waste management to describe the material and energy turnover of human society. It emerges from the application of systems thinking to the industrial and other man-made activities and it is a central concept of sustainable development. In modern societies, the bulk of anthropogenic (man-made) material flows is related to one of the following activities: sanitation, transportation, habitation, and communication, which were "of little metabolic significance in prehistoric times". Global man-made stocks of steel in buildings, infrastructure, and vehicles, for example, amount to about 25 Gigatonnes (more than three tonnes per person), a figure that is surpassed only by construction materials such as concrete.
Sustainable development is closely linked to the design of a sustainable anthropogenic metabolism, which will entail substantial changes in the energy and material turnover of the different human activities. Anthropogenic metabolism can be seen as synonymous to social or socioeconomic metabolism. It comprises both industrial metabolism and urban metabolism.
In layman's terms, anthropogenic metabolism indicates the human impact on the world by the modern industrialized world. Much of these impacts include waste management, ecological footprints, water footprints, and flow analysis (i.e., the rate at which each human depleted the energy around them). Most anthropogenic metabolism happens in developed countries. According to Rosales, "Economic growth is at present the main cause of increased climate change, and climate change is a main mechanism of biodiversity loss; because of this, economic growth is a major catalyst of biodiversity loss."
A water footprint is the amount of water that each person uses in their daily lives. Most of the world's water is salt water which cannot be used in human food or water supplies.
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Les enjeux environnementaux doivent être abordés de façon systémique. L'Analyse du Cycle de Vie (ACV) et l'Analyse de Flux de Matière (AFM) sont des méthodes permettant d'évaluer de façon globale les
This course provides the bases to understand material and energy production and consumption processes. Students learn how to develop a material flow analysis and apply it to cases of resource manageme
This course covers the essential knowledge of contaminant partitioning and techniques to monitor chemical species, physical extent of contamination and biological processes. In the second part, remedi
Social metabolism or socioeconomic metabolism is the set of flows of materials and energy that occur between nature and society, between different societies, and within societies. These human-controlled material and energy flows are a basic feature of all societies but their magnitude and diversity largely depend on specific cultures, or sociometabolic regimes. Social or socioeconomic metabolism is also described as "the self-reproduction and evolution of the biophysical structures of human society.
Industrial metabolism is a concept to describe the material and energy turnover of industrial systems. It was proposed by Robert Ayres in analogy to the biological metabolism as "the whole integrated collection of physical processes that convert raw materials and energy, plus labour, into finished products and wastes..." In analogy to the biological concept of metabolism, which is used to describe the whole of chemical reactions in, for example, a cell to maintain its functions and reproduce itself, the concept of industrial metabolism describes the chemical reactions, transport processes, and manufacturing activities in industry.
Urban metabolism is a model to facilitate the description and analysis of the flows of the materials and energy within cities, such as undertaken in a material flow analysis of a city. It provides researchers with a metaphorical framework to study the interactions of natural and human systems in specific regions. From the beginning, researchers have tweaked and altered the parameters of the urban metabolism model. C.
Delves into urban metabolism, circular economy policies, and material stocks in cities, emphasizing the interplay between environmental assessment and urban functioning.
Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is the only technique that can detect endogenous metabolites directly and non-invasively in vivo. It allows to identify different metabolites and analyze the dynamic neurochemical processes in the brain, skeletal muscl ...
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Microbial life is widespread in the terrestrial subsurface and present down to several kilometers depth, but the energy sources that fuel metabolism in deep oligotrophic and anoxic environments remain unclear. In the deep crystalline bedrock of the Fennosc ...
Carbon dioxide generated by the human body and exhaled (VCO2) is commonly used for ventilation controls, while the metabolic rate (i.e., energy expenditure EE) is an important parameter defining human thermal comfort in buildings. These two parameters are ...