Abstract
The input–output table and input–output method have been widely used to understand complex economic structures and are often used in cross-disciplinary research between economics and other disciplines, such as analysis of embodied energy, carbon footprints, the water–food nexus, etc. However, when researchers present these results to audiences, especially policymakers, they often lack an effective visualization tool to present (1) the full picture of the input–output table; (2) the complicated upstream–downstream nexus, and (3) the input–output relationships between the economic sectors. Therefore, a better visualization method is developed to solve this problem. We propose mapping an input–output table into a Sankey diagram, a so-called monetary allocation Sankey diagram. We first designed the mapping structure of a monetary allocation Sankey diagram according to the general structure of an economic monetary input–output table to establish the correspondence nexus between the table and diagram. We used China as a case study to demonstrate the usage of the monetary allocation Sankey diagram. The purpose of the monetary allocation Sankey diagram is to help people understand the input–output table in a short time and quickly grasp the big picture of the economic system. To verify whether this goal is achieved, we presented and applied these Sankey diagrams on different occasions and obtained evaluations from scholars from different academic backgrounds. The evaluation shows that the monetary allocation Sankey diagram is not only a visualization result of the input–output table but also a miniature model of the economic system, which allows people to “truly observe” the complex input–output relationship and upstream–downstream nexus in the economic system. Researchers can quickly grasp the main features of the economic system by observing the miniature model, or they can use this miniature model as an auxiliary tool to introduce the economic system and its inherent complex relationships to the audience.
Highlights
In the face of global sustainability challenges, the United Nations has proposed 17 sustainable development goals, calling upon all countries to act to protect the planet while promoting economic prosperity
We will briefly introduce the application of a monetary allocation Sankey diagram to the issue of total energy consumption control in China
Through the energy allocation Sankey diagram, we already know that the production of steel, chemicals, and cement is a main consumer of energy
Summary
In the face of global sustainability challenges, the United Nations has proposed 17 sustainable development goals, calling upon all countries to act to protect the planet while promoting economic prosperity. The input–output model is a suitable method for analyzing complex network data structures. It originated from the field of economics, but gradually began to be used in the field of embodied energy [2,3,4,5], embodied carbon [6,7,8,9], and embodied water [10,11,12]. With the help of the energy allocation Sankey Diagram, we can effectively show the characteristics of China’s energy system to an audience, especially the upstream and downstream relationship between energy supply, energy conversion, and energy consumption
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