Emergy-based assessment on the brownfield redevelopment of one old industrial area: a case of Tiexi in China

Abstract

Most of the old industrial areas are experiencing declining due to their backward equipment, technologies and management, leading to entreprise's bankrupcy, job losses and ecosystem degradation. In order to respond such a challenge, the local governments have made various efforts, such as polluting enterprises' relocation and brownfield redevelopment. It is critical to conduct a scientific assessment for such efforts so that appropriate solutions can be found by considering the local realities. Many evaluation methods, such as emergy analysis, material flow accounting and ecological footprint analysis, have been widely applied. Among them, emergy analysis is a useful policy and planning tool due to its unique nature of linking ecosystem service with different types of input–output flows interacting within a study area. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the overall performance of such a brownfield redevelopment site by observing its evolutional changes. Tiexi old industrial area in Shenyang city of northeast China was selected as the case study area. Years of 2000, 2005 and 2010 were chosen since each year represents a unique feature of its evolution, namely, before and after its redevelopment, as well as its ongoing process. The results show that almost all of the emergy flows were imported from the outside, leading to a lower sustainable development level. Before the relocation and redevelopment program, Tiexi was in the decline stage of economy, the inflow was much lower than those of 2005 and 2010. After the implementation of the relocation and redevelopment program, the flourishing of construction businesses and the drastic changes of urban functions induced higher emergy flows during 2000–2005 and then less emerg flows during 2005–2010 due to the phase-out of relocation. Finally, several policy recommendations were proposed, including preventative and regenerative eco-industrial development, industrial structure change, energy saving and energy structure optimization, and the application of economic instruments, etc.