Identifying Potential Industrial Symbiosis through GIS Based Resource Circulation Information

Abstract

The objectives of this paper are to introduce the GIS based resource circulation information, and to identify additional(or potential) industrial symbiosis based on existing industrial symbiosis and linkage-pair of industry by material. The resource circulation information contains information of the reuse of materials, water, and energy for all manufacturing companies in Ulsan Metropolitan City. The information can further be classified into the three steps -- input information(raw materials), flow information (products), and output information (by-products). The survey data from 3,768 industries and institutions in Ulsan Metropolitan area were collected and built into the GIS to analyze the mechanism of the industrial symbiosis. The results of this study strongly suggest that there are some additional industrial symbioses using by-products(materials, steam, waste water) and further efforts should be given to make them more effective. We expect that the methodology of building the resource circulation information of this study can be helpful to other local governments that try to build similar system.