Abstract
Many authors have applied input-output techniques to the analysis of energy and material flows in ecosystems. These applications are important contributions to our understanding of interdependence in ecological systems, but they suffer from reliance on “single commodity” flow matrices (i.e. enthalpy or carbon) and they do not address the problem of joint products, which is particularly significant for ecological applications. In this paper a general linear programming model is developed and used to describe and analyze interdependence in multicommodity ecosystems with joint products. The model is applied to data for Silver Springs and embodied energy intensities for the ecosystem products are calculated. The effects of different assumptions concerning the treatment of waste heat and joint products on the energy intensities are also discussed, as are potential applications to resource management problems that require a measure of relative value.
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