A review and comparative assessment of existing approaches to calculate material footprints

Effective implementation of resource policies requires consistent and robust indicators. An increasing number of national and international strategies focussing on resource efficiency as a means for reaching a green economy call for such indicators. As supply chains of goods and services are increasingly organised on the global level, comprehensive indica-tors taking into account upstream material flows associated with internationally traded products need to be compiled. Particularly in the last few years, the development of con-sumption-based indicators of material use also termed material footprints has made considerable progress. This paper presents a comprehensive review of existing methodol-ogies to calculate material footprint-type indicators. The three prevailing approaches, i.e. environmentally extended input-output analysis (EE-IOA), coefficient approaches based on process analysis data, and hybrid approaches combing elements of EE-IOA and process analysis are presented, existing models using the different approaches discussed, and advantages and disadvantages of each approach identified. We argue that there is still a strong need for improvement of the specific approaches as well as comparability of re-sults, in order to reduce uncertainties. The paper concludes with recommendations for further development covering methodological, data and institutional aspects

Anthropogenic Nitrogen and Phosphorus Emissions and Related Grey Water Footprints Caused by EU-27's Crop Production and Consumption

Water is a prerequisite for life on our planet. Due to climate change and pollution, water availability for agricultural production, industry and households is increasingly put at risk. With agriculture being the largest water user as well as polluter worldwide, we estimate anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus emissions to fresh water related to global crop production at a spatial resolution level of 5 by 5 arc min and calculate the grey water footprints (GWF) related to EU-27's crop production. A multiregional input-output model is used to trace the the GWF embodied in the final consumption of crop products by the EU-27. The total GWF related to crop production in the EU-27 in 2007 was 1 × 1012 m3/year. Spain contributed about 40% to this total. Production of cereals (wheat, rice and other cereals) take the largest share, accounting for 30% of the GWF, followed by fruits (17%), vegetables (14%), and oil crops (13%). The total agricultural GWF of the EU-27 related to crop consumption was 1830 billion m3/year, which is 3700 m3/year per capita on average. Overall, the EU-27 was able to externalize about 41% of the GWF to the rest of the world through imports of crop products

Spatially explicit assessment of water embodied in European trade: A product-level multi-regional input-output analysis

Responsible water management in an era of globalised supply chains needs to consider both local and regional water balances and international trade. In this paper, we assess the water footprints of total final demand in the EU-27 at a very detailed product level and spatial scale - an important step towards informed water policy. We apply the multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model EXIOBASE, including water data, to track the distribution of water use along product supply chains within and across countries. This enables the first spatially-explicit MRIO analysis of water embodied in Europe's external trade for almost 11,000 watersheds world-wide, tracing indirect ("virtual") water consumption in one country back to those watersheds where the water was actually extracted. We show that the EU-27 indirectly imports large quantities of blue and green water via international trade of products, most notably processed crop products, and these imports far exceed the water used from domestic sources. The Indus, Danube and Mississippi watersheds are the largest individual contributors to the EU-27's final water consumption, which causes large environmental impacts due to water scarcity in both the Indus and Mississippi watersheds. We conclude by sketching out policy options to ensure that sustainable water management within and outside European borders is not compromised by European consumption

Can Input-Output Data Inform Agri-food Supply Network Reconfiguration? The Case of Water-Intensive Crop Production in Developing Economies

Thispaperidentifiesopportunitiesto facilitate agri-food supply networkreconfiguration,usingpubliclyavailable input-output data platformstogenerateinsights into the water intensity of crop production. Making reference to the Indian economy, it is shown that intuitive analytics can berapidly developed to unravel complex patterns of production and consumption in global valuenetworks, and the pressure exerted on freshwater resourcesat specific locations. The potential use of the evidence thus obtained to supportalternativecrop policy scenarios and agri-food supply network configurationsis discussed, with an emphasis on the need to inform a possible transition away fromhighly specialized cropping patterns.BBSRC Grant No. BB/P027970/

The impacts of data deviations between MRIO models on material footprints: A comparison of EXIOBASE, Eora, and ICIO

In various international policy processes such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, an urgent demand for robust consumption-based indicators of material flows, or material footprints (MFs), has emerged over the past years. Yet, MFs for national economies diverge when calculated with different Global Multiregional Input-Output (GMRIO) databases, constituting a significant barrier to a broad policy uptake of these indicators. The objective of this paper is to quantify the impact of data deviations between GMRIO databases on the resulting MF. We use two methods, structural decomposition analysis and structural production layer decomposition, and apply them for a pairwise assessment of three GMRIO databases, EXIOBASE, Eora, and the OECD Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) database, using an identical set of material extensions. Although all three GMRIO databases accord for the directionality of footprint results, that is, whether a countries' final demand depends on net imports of raw materials from abroad or is a net exporter, they sometimes show significant differences in level and composition of material flows. Decomposing the effects from the Leontief matrices (economic structures), we observe that a few sectors at the very first stages of the supply chain, that is, raw material extraction and basic processing, explain 60% of the total deviations stemming from the technology matrices. We conclude that further development of methods to align results from GMRIOs, in particular for material-intensive sectors and supply chains, should be an important research priority. This will be vital to strengthen the uptake of demand-based material flow indicators in the resource policy context

Metal Mining's Environmental Pressures: A Review and Updated Estimates on CO2 Emissions, Water Use, and Land Requirements

The significant increase in metal mining and the inevitability of the continuation of this trend suggests that environmental pressures, as well as related impacts, have become an issue of global relevance. Yet the scale of the impact remains, to a large extent, unknown. This paper examines the mining sector's demands on CO2 emissions, water use, as well as demands on land use focusing on four principal metals: iron, aluminium (i.e., bauxite ore), copper, and gold. These materials represent a large proportion of all metallic materials mined in terms of crude tonnage and economic value. This paper examines how the main providers of mining data, the United Nations, government sources of some main metal producing and consuming countries, the scientific literature, and company reports report environmental pressures in these three areas. The authors conclude that, in the global context, the pressure brought about by metal mining is relatively low. The data on this subject are still very limited and there are significant gaps in consistency on criteria such as boundary descriptions, input parameter definitions, and allocation method descriptions as well as a lack of commodity and/or site specific reporting of environmental data at a company level

Identifying priority areas for European resource policies: a MRIO-based material footprint assessment

In the context of the transformation toward a "green economy," issues related to natural resource use have rapidly increased in importance in European and international policy debates. The large number of studies applying economy-wide material flow analysis so far mostly produced aggregated national indicators, making the results difficult to connect to policies, which are often designed for single sectors or consumption areas. This paper provides a detailed assessment of the composition of EU's material footprint in its global context, aiming at identifying the main product groups contributing to overall material consumption and specifying the geographical sources for the raw materials required to satisfy EU's final demand. Based on multi-regional input¿output (MRIO) modeling, we apply production layer decomposition to assess supply chains and their structural changes from 1995 to 2011. The global MRIO database used in this study is EXIOBASE 3, which disaggregates 200 products and 163 industries, of which 33 represent material extraction sectors. By that means, we increase the level of detail to a degree where policies can more easily connect to. We find that the generally growing material footprint of the EU was characterized by a dramatic shift regarding the origin of raw materials, with the share of materials extracted within the EU territory falling from 68 % in 1995 to 35 % in 2011. In 2011, raw materials extracted in China to produce exports to the EU already contributed an equal share to EU's material footprint as material extraction within the EU itself. Import dependency is most critical for the material group of metal ores, with only 13 % of all metals required as inputs to EU final demand stemming from within the EU. Regarding product composition, construction was confirmed as the most important sector contributing to the material footprint, followed by the group of manufacturing products based on biomass. Materials embodied in service sector activities together contributed a quarter to the total material footprint in 2011, making services an important, but currently disregarded area for European resource policies. We also find that supply chain structures became more complex over time, with a growing part located outside the EU territory. (authors' abstract

Quantifying sustainable resource use within planetary boundaries

Die Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen nimmt in einem nicht gekannten Ausmaß zu. Daher ist es notwendig, ihr Ausmaß und ihre Auswirkungen mit Hilfe von geeigneten Indikatoren zu messen und Grenzwerte für eine nachhaltige Nutzung zu entwickeln. Umfassende Indikatoren, die jene Mengen an Ressourcen quantifizieren können, die für die Herstellung importierter Güter notwendig waren, gewinnen dabei an Relevanz. Vor diesem Hintergrund gibt diese Dissertation Antworten auf die folgenden Forschungsfragen: (1) Wie sind Indikatoren zu entwickeln, die sowohl die direkte (nationale) als auch indirekte (globale) Dimension der Ressourcennutzung einer Volkswirtschaft abbilden können? (2) Wie sollten solche Indikatoren für Rohstoffe und Wasser gestaltet werden? (3) Welche Prinzipien sollen der Eruierung von Zielwerten für eine nachhaltige Wassernutzung zu Grunde gelegt werden? Im ersten Artikel wird eine Analyse existierender Ansätze zur Kalkulation umfassender Indikatoren durchgeführt. Als Schlussfolgerung wird weitergehende Forschung bezüglich einer soliden Datengrundlage und einer breiten Abdeckung von Sektoren und Ländern angeregt. Ebenso bedarf es eines Dialogs aller involvierten Akteure um sicherzustellen, dass Datensammlung und Methodenharmonisierung abgestimmt und effizient umgesetzt werden. Der zweite Artikel bringt die um Wasserdaten erweiterte Input-Output-Analyse zur Anwendung. Es wird gezeigt, dass mit solchen Modellen mit hohem Produkt und räumlichem Detail eine Reihe an relevanten Politikfragen beantwortet werden können. Dafür müssen jedoch vor allem die Verfügbarkeit und Qualität der Wassernutzungsdaten stark verbessert werden. In Artikel 3 werden aufbauend auf existierenden Ansätze sowie einem Expertendialog Prinzipien für die Erarbeitung von Grenzwerten im Bereich Wasser entwickelt. Dazu gehören Aspekte wie der Fokus auf den Konsum sogenannten blauen Wassers auf der Ebene von Flusseinzugsgebieten mit Hilfe von Indikatoren, die auch auf globaler Ebene anwendbar sind.Humanity's appropriation of natural resources is increasing at an unprecedented pace. It is hence imperative to measure resource use and its impacts through appropriate indicators as well as to develop specific thresholds for a sustainable resource. Comprehensive indicators taking into account resources "embodied" in traded goods and services are of increasing relevance. In this context, this dissertation aims at answering three specific research questions: (1) How to develop indicators which allow for covering the direct (national) and indirect (global) dimensions of resource use of an economy? (2) How to design such indicators for raw materials and water use on the economy-wide level? (3) Which principles have to be followed when identifying targets for sustainable water use? The first article applies an extensive review of existing approaches to calculate comprehensive indicators. It concludes that further research is needed on methodological aspects such as a solid database on resource use, a large sector and country coverage as well as a dialogue between involved actors to ensure a harmonised proceeding. The second article applies environmentally extended input-output analysis to the water case and analyses the potentials as well as future research needs of . It is shown that such models with high product and geographical detail can theoretically address a number of policy questions. However, there is a strong need for an improved data basis on water appropriation. Building on existing approaches as well as on an expert dialogue, the third article develops principles to be followed when identifying targets for sustainable water use. These include aspects such as a focus on blue water consumption at the watershed level with indicators that are equally applicable for the global dimension. Hence, this dissertation contributes to the field of target setting in order to achieve the urgently required turnaround towards a sustainable use of natural resources.by Franz Stephan Lutter, MSc, MScAbweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des VerfassersZusammenfassung in deutscher SpracheUniversität für Bodenkultur Wien, Dissertation, 2016OeBB(VLID)193109

Proposal for a new compilation system for metal ores in economy wide material flow accounting

The authors of this article propose a major revision of the processes used for assembling the metal ores component of economy wide material flow accounts. The case for doing this is built by describing in detail important shortcomings of current metal ores reporting systems, introducing the key features of the revised system being proposed, and then illustrating the way in which the new system both solves old shortcomings and adds important new capacities. The new capacities added are of particular interest with regard to organizing the data required for a range of practical resource and environmental monitoring and management tasks, at national and smaller scale. The various components of the case for change are explained largely using illustrative examples. The direct motivations behind this work are twofold. Firstly, the proposed system will improve the accuracy and fitness for current uses of the metal ores accounts being assembled. Secondly, and more importantly, the additional capabilities of the revised system as a resource and environmental management tool will make the process of assembling EW-MFA accounts more clearly relevant to the concerns of developing countries, which are increasingly being prevailed upon to compile these accounts. In addition to the direct benefits of improved resources and environmental management that should be enabled by the revised system, it is expected that expanding the utility derived from the EW-MFA process will provide a stronger incentive for its institutionalization and maintenance by individual nations.Security: staffonl

The cross section functions for neutron induced reactions with Rhenium in the energy range 13.0–19.5 MeV

The technique for measuring neutron activation cross-sections using wide energy neutron beams (NAXSUN) was recently developed at JRC-Geel. This method is based on the detection of the gamma activity induced by the activation of the samples in different but overlapping neutron fields and following an unfolding procedure. In the present work, measurements of the cross-section functions by the NAXSUN technique for the (n,a), (n,2n), (n,p) and (n,3n) reactions on rhenium isotopes 185Re and 187Re were performed. The results are the first experimental data for the mentioned reaction cross-sections in the energy range 13.0-19.5 MeV. The obtained data are of interest for possible applications of Re in nuclear technology and medicine.JRC.G.2-Standards for Nuclear Safety, Security and Safeguard