Knowledge Agora



Scientific Article details

Title Materials Metabolism Analysis of China's Highway Traffic System (HTS) for Promoting Circular Economy
ID_Doc 28622
Authors Wen, ZG; Li, RJ
Title Materials Metabolism Analysis of China's Highway Traffic System (HTS) for Promoting Circular Economy
Year 2010
Published Journal Of Industrial Ecology, 14.0, 4
DOI 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2010.00263.x
Abstract P>With the rapid growth of highway mileage and vehicles, the Chinese highway traffic system (HTS) has become one of the great resource consumers. This article attempts to evaluate the material metabolism of China's HTS during 2001-2005 using the approach of material flow analysis (MFA) and to explore possible measures to promote circular economy throughout HTS. We measured a set of indicators to illustrate the whole material metabolism of China's HTS. The results indicated that the direct material input (DMI) of China's HTS increased from 1181.26 million tonnes (Mt) in 2001 to 1,874.57 Mt in 2005, and about 80% of DMI was accumulated in the system as infrastructure and vehicles. The domestic processed output (DPO) increased by 59.0% from 2001 to 2005. Carbon dioxide and solid waste accounted for 80.5% and 10.4% of DPO, respectively. The increase of resource consumption and pollutant emissions kept pace with the growth of transportation turnover. All these suggest that China's HTS still followed an extensive linear developing pattern with large resource consumption and heavy pollution emissions during the study period, which brought great challenges to the resources and the environment. Therefore, it's high time for China to implement a circular economy throughout the HTS by instituting resource and energy savings, by reducing emissions in the field of infrastructure construction and maintenance, by reducing vehicles' energy and materials consumption, and by recycling waste materials.
Author Keywords direct material input (DMI); domestic processed output (DPO); industrial ecology; infrastructure; material flow analysis (MFA); vehicles
Index Keywords Index Keywords
Document Type Other
Open Access Open Access
Source Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)
EID WOS:000281284900011
WoS Category Green & Sustainable Science & Technology; Engineering, Environmental; Environmental Sciences
Research Area Science & Technology - Other Topics; Engineering; Environmental Sciences & Ecology
PDF
Similar atricles
Scroll