Emergy Method Research Articles

Identification of Ecological Compensation Zones and Compensation Amounts: A Case Study of the Yellow River Delta

Accurately identifying ecological compensation areas and scientifically determining appropriate compensation amounts are crucial for establishing a robust ecological compensation mechanism, which in turn is key to promoting the coordinated development of ecological protection and high-quality economic growth. This study innovatively proposes a framework for ecological compensation termed “Accounting of Ecosystem Services Value–Identification of Priorities for Payers and Recipients–Calculation of Ecological Compensation Amount (ESV–PPR–ECA)”. It utilizes the InVEST model and the emergy method to assess the value of ecosystem services, constructs the Ecosystem Payment and Recipient Priority Sequence (EPRPS) Model to identify the payers, recipients, and their priorities for ecological compensation, and employs the conversion factor method to calculate the Ecological Compensation Amount (ECA). This framework aims to address the questions of “How should compensation be provided?”, “Who should compensate whom?”, and “How much compensation is necessary?”, ensuring the optimal use of ecological compensation funds and providing a scientific basis for inter-regional ecological compensation. The study’s findings indicate that the total Ecological Compensation Amount for the Yellow River Delta in 2020 was 3.848 billion RMB, with the total amount receivable being 4.032 billion RMB and the total amount payable being 184 million RMB. The compensation funds should be prioritized for tideland and the Yellow River, and venture, cropland and industrial land should be the first to contribute compensation. Additionally, the Ecosystem Service Value of the Yellow River Delta showed a declining trend from 2015 to 2020, underscoring the urgent need to establish a horizontal compensation mechanism for the region. Such a mechanism would incentivize environmental protection and the construction of ecological civilization, ultimately enhancing ecosystem service functions. Therefore, we recommend the implementation of horizontal fiscal transfers, where financial assistance is provided from paying areas to recipient areas, offering a scientific reference for the establishment of a horizontal compensation mechanism within the Yellow River Delta.

An integrated environmental-economic assessment of orange production in China during 2010–2020

It is unclear how agricultural materials use affects environmental sustainability, carbon emissions and economic benefit of fruit plantation as well as relationships among the three aspects. To address these issues, Chinese orange production, as a study case, was investigated through combination of emergy method, carbon footprint and economic analysis, as well as the proposed co-benefit index based on emergy-carbon-economy. This evaluation framework was applied to assess orange production in Chinese seven provinces during 2010–2020. On average, Jiangxi has the highest emergy sustainability level (0.14) while Guangxi and Chongqing show the lowest level (0.08). Chongqing and Guangdong achieve the best and the worst economic benefit (3.34 vs. 1.78 in terms of Return on Investment) respectively. Hunan and Guangdong possess the lowest and the largest carbon emission intensity (0.11 vs. 0.90 kg CO2-eq kg −1 product) accordingly. Hunan and Guangdong achieve the best and the worst co-benefit effect (13.52 vs. 0.48 in terms of Co-benefit Index) respectively. Except Hunan and Jiangxi, emergy sustainability adversely affects co-benefit effect of orange production in the other five provinces. Carbon emission intensity reduces co-benefit effect of orange production in Guangdong. Economic benefit weakens co-benefit effect of orange production in Fujian, Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong. The work proposed one feasible framework for investigating comprehensive performance of fruit production based on emergy – carbon - economy.

Data-driven sustainability evaluation and manufacturing system enhancement from economic, environmental, social, and sustainability perspectives.

Sustainable manufacturing is crucial to achieving carbon neutrality targets. However, research on the sustainability of manufacturing systems is limited, and high consumption, low efficiency, and high emissions have resulted in high resource consumption and rapid environmental degradation. Therefore, it is of great importance to establish an evaluation and improvement indicator system conducive to sustainable development. To this end, this study developed a data-driven methodology for evaluating and enhancing the sustainability of manufacturing systems. Manufacturing system production process data, with data dimensions unified via the emergy method, were used to construct a sustainable development evaluation model that includes four perspectives: economy, environment, society, and sustainability. The model was applied to a flange production workshop in China to analyze the interrelation mechanisms among energy consumption, resource consumption, and environmental pollution, and identify optimization schemes to improve sustainability. After implementing these optimization schemes, the emergy yield rate (EYR) of the flange increased by 23.40%, the environmental load rate (ELR) decreased by 19.03%, the per capita emergy (EPP) increased by 6.88%, and the emergy-based sustainability index (ESI) increased by 52.76%. The method presented herein offers a novel and effective tool to analyze and visualize sustainable development in manufacturing systems and identify the relationship between technology and management in the manufacturing industry; however, this method is based on historical data and rules, and lacks of flexible response to unknown situations. The results provide a reference for enterprises to achieve sustainable and lean manufacturing.

First high-resolution marine natural capital mapping in the coastal waters of Chinese mainland

Marine ecosystems are complex self-organized systems that generate natural capital stocks and vital ecosystem services (ES) for human well-being. However, the assessment of marine natural capital in coastal countries is often overlooked. In this study, we evaluated the value of marine natural capital in mainland China using existing ES classifications and the emergy method. China's marine natural capital was estimated at 3.29E+24 sej/yr, with coastal waters having 3.2 times higher emergy density than terrestrial ecosystems. The annual economic value of marine natural capital in China's coastal water was approximately 8817.42 billion yuan/yr, nearly equal to China's Gross Ocean Product (GOP) in 2019 (8941.5-billion-yuan). Southern China showed significantly higher natural capital values than northern China. These findings highlight regional disparities in marine resource utilization and socioeconomic status, posing challenges to sustainable ocean development. The results provide a reference for policy and strategy development for sustainable marine resource exploitation.

An emergy analysis of environmental sustainability in urban agriculture: evidence from protected agriculture in Beijing, China

Urban agriculture (UA) serves as an essential aspect of local food production that could promote the urban resilience enhancement of food system. This study applies a “farm-to-table” emergy method to analyze the environmental sustainability of two typical urban farms in Beijing, China, based on the field investigation. One is a suburban greenhouse farm that sells food through supermarkets, and the other is an aquaponic farm that delivers fresh food to consumers’ tables by express delivery. The results showed that compared with traditional greenhouse farming, aquaponics farm has a lower environmental loading ratio and higher emergy sustainability index, but requires more emergy inputs. The research findings would provide scientific references for the future planning of urban agriculture from the perspective of both production and sales.

A Sustainable Evaluation Study Based on Emergy–Geographic Information System (GIS) Methodology in Hangzhou City from 2010 to 2035

Sustainability studies are vital for the long-term development of ecological cities. For cities, single qualitative or quantitative evaluation studies cannot effectively illustrate the ecological and sustainable status of a city. This study employs the emergy–geographic information system (GIS) method to conduct a sustainability evaluation of a city, so as to effectively verify the evaluation results. The emergy method and GIS are both commonly used approaches to address urban issues, but their synergistic effect has rarely been considered, explored, and utilized in urban planning. This study aims to investigate this effect on Hangzhou city through comparative analysis. The results show that rain (geopotential energy) and rain (chemical potential energy) have the highest emergy values from 2000 to 2035, followed by solar emergy, wind emergy, and geothermal heat emergy. These findings are also supported by the GIS map that shows a similar pattern with renewable emergy. Using the five plots (cropland, woodland, grassland, water area, and built-up land) on the GIS map as examples, the accuracy of emergy calculation results for Hangzhou city can be verified, demonstrating the effectiveness of the emergy–GIS methodology. This research provides practical recommendations for city designers and professionals worldwide on urban sustainability. By incorporating both emergy and GIS methods, cities can make informed decisions toward achieving environmentally sustainable development.

A Sustainability Analysis Based on the LCA–Emergy–Carbon Emission Approach in the Building System

Ecologically sustainable buildings and their carbon emissions are two popular ideas for building life cycle systems. It is a challenge to comprehensively assess the sustainability of building cases using two different methods. Based on over a decade of research, this paper attempts to explore the possibility of quantitatively integrating both approaches. In this study, we adopted the emergy method and carbon emission approach to assess and analyze a building system. In particular, similarities and differences have been identified through emergy and carbon emissions at each stage of the building’s whole life cycle. The results demonstrate that the building operation phase is the critical contributor (Approximately 79.6% of the total emergy and 97.9% of the entire carbon emission), which occupies the most emergy and carbon emission amounts of the whole building system. In order to improve the ecological sustainability of the building system, renewable energy subsystems are considered and explored. While the overall sustainability of the building system is enhanced, the new systems will aggrandize the carbon emissions. Therefore, the ecological sustainability of building systems and carbon emissions should be considered comprehensively, and the relationship between the two views needs to be balanced.

Research on emergy evaluation method of ecological water use efficiency based on comprehensive benefits.

Scientifically evaluating ecological water use efficiency (EWUE) is an effective means to regulate the level of ecological water use in a country or a region. It is also a basic work to achieve high-efficiency use of ecological water under the current situation of water shortage. However, there were few researches on EWUE, and existing studies only focus on eco-environmental benefits generated by ecological water, without considering its impact on economy and society. An emergy evaluation method for EWUE based on comprehensive benefits was proposed in this paper innovatively. Considering the impact of ecological water use on society, economy, and eco-environment, the concept of EWUE could be defined. Then, comprehensive benefits of ecological water use (CBEW) were quantified by emergy method, and EWUE was evaluated by the comprehensive benefits of unit ecological water use. Taking Zhengzhou City as an example for calculation, from 2011 to 2020, CBEW increased from 5.20 × 1019 sej to 6.72 × 1020 sej, showing an overall upward trend, and EWUE rose from 2.71 × 1011 sej/m3 (1.27￥/m3) to 1.32 × 1012 sej/m3 (8.10￥/m3) with fluctuation. It showed that Zhengzhou City has paid enough attention to the allocation of ecological water and EWUE at a high level. The method proposed in this paper provides a new idea to evaluate EWUE scientifically, and the results can provide guidance to allocate ecological water resources to achieve sustainable development.

Global Research Trends in Emergy and Wastewater Treatment: A Bibliometric Analysis

This research reports a bibliometric analysis using the bibliometrix package with information from the SCOPUS database. A descriptive analysis was performed to provide an overview of the countries, institutions, authors, journals and keywords of 80 manuscripts published between 1997 and 2022 in the field of study of emergy and its application in wastewater treatment. The results showed 2 sources with the highest h and g impact index (Ecological Engineering and Journal of Cleaner Production) with a significant growth since 2009. The most cited keywords were "emergy" and "wastewater", and the countries with the most important scientific networks were China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, USA, Brazil, Colombia and Italy. In addition, it shows that collaborative groups among the authors from China and USA are the ones that consolidate the main research network, as well as the largest scientific production with the most cited articles in the field of study of emergy in wastewater treatment. Therefore, the application of the emergy method in wastewater treatment requires extensive research in different types of treatments. This type of analysis would allow the development of a new approach in the application of wastewater treatment in terms of sustainability and the introduction of Latin American countries in this emerging field.

Ecological sustainability assessment of building glass industry in China based on the point of view of raw material emergy and chemical composition.

Severe environmental destruction is being driven by excessive resource consumption in the industrial production process. Therefore, there is a necessity to evaluate the sustainability of the production system. In this study, the emergy method has been adopted to assess the flat building glass production in China based on raw material and chemical composition. A series of problems including key contributors, primary sustainable indexes, unit emergy value (UEVs), sensitivity ratios, and waste impact was studied. The results illustrate that (1) the nonrenewable resources and imported resources showed the dominant impacts. (2) Silica sand and sandstone were the foremost items for the raw material angle emergy. (3) Excessive EIR, serious ELR, and tiny ESI were the main contributors to the unsustainability of the evaluated system. (4) Four UEVs were revealed, which are 1.69E + 12sej/kg, 1.80E + 12sej/kg, 1.60E + 12sej/kg, and 1.71E + 12sej/kg, respectively. (5) The nonrenewable resources showed the biggest fluctuation (7.09%), followed by imported resources (1.62%) in view of the raw material perspective; for the chemical composition, the nonrenewable resources were 7.15%, and imported resources were 1.49%, respectively. (6) Waste gas emissions were found as the major emergy contributor to the economic loss. Furthermore, positive solutions were discussed for improving the sustainability of glass production, including the proportion increase of renewable energy, recycling material replacement, and promotion of energy-saving equipment.

Sustainability Investigation in the Building Cement Production System Based on the LCA-Emergy Method

As one of the highest energy and resource consumption industries in China, discussion on the sustainability of the cement production system has great significance. This study conducted sustainable calculations and analyses for cement production systems based on the emergy method. This study also considers the sustainability impact of clean energy on the overall cement production system. Through a series of sustainable indicator measurements, the results prove that: (1) the two primary sections, non-renewable resource and non-renewable energy, contribute 88.6% and 11.1% of the emergy proportion, respectively; (2) the emergy sustainability indicator (ESI) was only 0.058, which is significantly less than the standard; (3) through the analysis of eight hypotheses, a very small change between the absolute values was found, which demonstrates that the sensitivity changes are within acceptable limits for the cement production system; and (4) by integrating the biological power generation subsystem, sustainability has been optimized in the cement production system. Finally, two ameliorated strategies are discussed in this paper for the better sustainability performance of the cement production system in the future.

Ecological–social–economic system health diagnosis and sustainable design of high-density cities: An urban agglomeration perspective

• The ECCDMM was proposed firstly to study the health of HDCs. • In the high-quality development stage of HDCs in developing countries, ecosystem quality remains a decisive factor for HDCs health, while the main influencing factor is social system development level. • In 2018, 50% of the cities in Yangzi River's high-density urban agglomeration are in a healthy state and 50% are in a sub-healthy state. Affected by various urban diseases, the sustainable development of high-density cities (HDCs) is under tremendous pressure. The health evaluation methods of HDCs, such as the emergy method and urban health index evaluation method, have difficulties in reflecting the internal mechanism of the system with non-uniform evaluation indices. The Emergy Coupling Coordination Health Diagnosis Model (ECCHDM) was proposed to study the health of sustainable cities and the design mechanisms. The Yangzi River urban agglomeration is taken as an example for practical research. Results show that: (1) ECCHDM is reliable and reasonable in investigating and evaluating the mechanism and health of urban systems; (2) In the high-quality development stage of HDCs in developing countries, ecosystem quality remains a decisive factor for HDCs health, while the main influencing factor is social system development level. (3) In 2018, 50% of the cities in the Yangzi River urban agglomeration are in a healthy state and 50% are in a sub-health state. The proposed research methods can also be applied in the planning and design of HDCs in other developing countries.

Food Consumption Characteristics and Influencing Factors in a Grassland Transect of Inner Mongolia Based on the Emergy Method.

Food consumption is the vital connection between human beings and natural resources. Our research explores the characteristics and drivers of food consumption patterns within Mongolian grasslands with a vulnerable ecology and environment. Food consumption data were obtained via a household questionnaire survey, and the emergy method was applied to analyze the food consumption characteristics in different grassland areas. This led to the following results: (1) The total per capita food consumption in different banners showed greater consumption and higher percentage of animal-based food in regions farther north. (2) From south to north, the main meat consumption in different banners varied, the predominant meat type consumed in Taibus was pork, that in Zhenglan was mutton, and that in West Ujimqin was beef. The farther north, the more fruits and vegetables were consumed. (3) The characteristics of food consumption in different areas were influenced by a series of factors, including social, economic, and ecological ones. Local food supply and disposable income were the main factors that had important effects on food consumption structure, as these two factors provided accessibility to foods for consumption.

Analysis of Food Consumption and Its Characteristics in Uzbekistan Based on the Emergy Method

Food resources play a great role in human livelihood, so it is meaningful to investigate their utilization and structural evolution, especially in developing countries. This study takes data from FAOSTAT and the World Bank, and applies the emergy method to analyze Uzbek food consumption changes and characteristics from 1992 to 2019. Two main results were obtained: (1) National food consumption showed a persistent increase and had a remarkable change in stages, with the first stage of low-level repetition, the second stage of speeding up and the third stage of high development. The increase of animal-based food consumption was more notable than that of plant-based food consumption. (2) Per capita annual food consumption had a tendency of change that was similar to that of national food consumption. The proportion of animal-based food in the total per capita annual food consumption usually remained about 2-fold higher than that of plant-based food consumption. The main food consumption pattern was the combination of crops such as wheat and rice with meat such as beef. The fruit and vegetable consumption also increased. With the growing population, various changes in food demand will inevitably happen, so it is necessary to take sustainable measures in time to satisfy the new demand and to protect resources and the environment.

Research on quantification method of water pollution ecological environment losses

Abstract Economic and social development have worsened the situation of water pollution and even the ecological environment. It is helpful to quantify the water pollution ecological environment losses for decision-makers to formulate reasonable pollution control plans. However, the current quantitative analyses led by economic methods are not comprehensive and systematic. Therefore, based on the emergy theory and method system of eco-economics, this study analyzed the internal energy flow process of the water-polluted ecosystem, discussed the composition of water-polluted ecological environment loss, and proposed a quantitative model of water-polluted ecological environment loss based on the emergy analysis method. It can reasonably quantify the ecological environment loss caused by water pollution and provide a reference for optimizing regional industrial layout, scientifically formulating pollution control planning, and promoting the sustainable development of the ecosystem. Taking Kaifeng City in Henan Province as an example, the rationality of the model is verified. The results show that the annual average total energy value of water pollution ecological environment loss in Kaifeng City is 3.83 × 1020sej, equivalent to 145 million yuan (0.76) of Kaifeng's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018.

Benefit Analysis of Economic and Social Water Supply in Xi’an Based on the Emergy Method

In order to manage regional water resources efficiently and sustainably and promote the rational utilization of water resources, it is necessary to evaluate the water-supply benefit reasonably. On the basis of emergy theory, this paper constructs the water-supply-benefit model of economic (industry, agriculture, and the tertiary industry) and social (domestic, employment security, entertainment, scientific research) systems. Taking Xi’an from 2014 to 2020 as an example, by analyzing the energy flow of each system and the multisource water transformities, the water contribution rate, the water-supply benefit, and the unit-water-resource value in each system are calculated. For the water-supply benefits: Industry > Agriculture > Domestic > Tertiary industry > Employment Security > Entertainment > Scientific research. For the unit-water-resource values: Industry > Tertiary industry > Agriculture > Domestic > Entertainment > Employment security > Scientific research. In the economic system, the water-supply benefit and the unit-water value of industry were always the largest, followed by agriculture and the tertiary industry. However, the Pearson correlation coefficient between the water contribution rate and the output of the industrial system was only 0.52, which was less than that of other production industries, which indicates that there might be a waste of water and that industrial water conservation needs to be further strengthened. In the social system, the domestic-water-supply benefits and the water-resource value were the largest. This is because water resources, as a basic resource, always affect people’s health and quality of life.

Assessing the sustainability of ecosystems over fourteen years of cultivation in Longnan City of China based on emergy analysis method

Currently, the contradiction between the limited resources of China's cultivated ecosystems and population growth is becoming increasingly evident, and the negative impacts on the environment and human activities need to be curbed. Therefore, it is crucial to quantify the sustainability of cultivated ecosystems and determine these driving factors that affect their development. This study used the emergy method to quantify the input/output flow and sustainable development of the cultivated land ecosystem in Longnan City, combined with the logarithmic mean divisia index decomposition analysis (LMDI) method to evaluate the driving factors of sustainable development in the region. The results demonstrate that from 2004 to 2017, the total emergy input and output of Longnan City showed an upward trend, and non-renewable resources (N) were always in a dominant state in the total emergy (T) input, and their proportion rose from 59.69% to 66.92%. The emergy sustainability index (ESI) is less than 1, and the environmental pressure of the system is relatively higher. Comprehensive emergy production ratio (EPR), emergy investment ratio (EIR), the renewable fraction (R%), emergy yield ratio (EYR) and environmental load ratio (ELR), showed that the agricultural ecological economy in Longnan still has great development potential, and clean energy should be developed as far as possible to replace fossil fuels in future planning. LMDI results showed that the intensity factor ΔY′A is the main driving factor for the positive development of ESI. The government's ecological protection requirements can reduce waste emissions through reasonable farming system and advocating the use of organic fertilizer, so as to achieve the purpose of improving crop yield. Vigorous development of green ecological agricultural production patterns can improve the sustainability of arable ecosystems. This study can provide a theoretical basis for the sustainable development of cultivated ecosystems and the formulation of related agricultural production measures.

Evaluation of the Ecological Benefits of Recycling Multiple Metals from Lithium Battery Saggars Based on Emergy Analysis

With the rapid development of China’s new energy industry, the use of lithium-ion batteries has increased sharply, and the demand for battery cathode metals such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese has also increased rapidly. Scrapped ceramic saggars that are used to produce the cathode materials of lithium-ion batteries contain large amounts of nickel, cobalt, and manganese compounds; thus, recycling these saggars has high economic value and ecological significance. In this paper, the emergy method is used to analyze the ecological benefits of the typical Ni–Co-containing saggar recycling process in China. This paper constructs an ecoefficiency evaluation index for industrial systems based on emergy analysis to analyze the recycling of nickel and cobalt saggars. The ecological benefits are analyzed, and the following conclusions are drawn. (1) The Ni–Co-containing saggar recycling production line has good economic and ecological benefits. (2) The process has room for improvement in the energy use efficiency and clean energy use of the crystallization process and the efficiency of chemical use in the cascade separation and purification process. This study also establishes a set of emergy analysis methods and indicator system for the evaluation of the ecological benefit of the recycling industry, which can provide a reference for the evaluation of the eco-economic benefit of similar recycling industry processes.

Green thermal power dispatching based on environmental information during the energy transition period

With the global trend of clean and low-carbon energy transformation, China has put forward the 30·60 double carbon target. However, traditional energy still need to play a supporting role in the energy transition period. The purpose of this study is to optimize the dispatching order of thermal power resource, when clean renewable energy is given priority and fully dispatching, but still can not meet the energy demand of the whole society. Different from the traditional economic dispatching, the green thermal power dispatching evaluation mechanism proposed in this paper is oriented by cleanliness, supplemented by economy and reliability. This paper set up green power dispatching evaluation model through the comprehensive use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Entropy Weight Method and Grey Relation Analysis. And emergy method was used to solve the problem of environmental information quantification and evaluation. Finally, we established a set of green comprehensive energy efficiency evaluation system with 16 indicators. The results showed that the dispatch sequence has changed significantly under the new mechanism, which confirmed that the model has good effect and practical value for optimizing the cleaning dispatching of thermal power.

Analysis of Food Production and Consumption Based on the Emergy Method in Kazakhstan.

The imbalance in the supply and demand for resources is a thorny issue that many countries have to face. Food is a basic resource throughout the world. Understanding the exact situation of food production and consumption is an important foundation for sustainable development. This paper aims to explore the quantity and pattern changes in food production and consumption in Kazakhstan. This can reflect the level of residents’ standard of living and the situation of natural resource use. This paper focuses on the quantitative relationship between animal-based food and plant-based food and the tendency towards changes in urban and rural residents’ food production and consumption in Kazakhstan based on the emergy analysis method. The data of food production and consumption were mainly obtained from the official statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Bank, Statistical Commission of the Ministry of National Economy of Kazakhstan, and literature. The research results showed that, over time, Kazakhstan residents’ food consumption patterns have become more varied, and the proportion of meat consumption to total food consumption has increased. Although the rural per capita food consumption is significantly different from that of urban residents, this gap decreased in 2019. In Kazakhstan, the consumption of several types of food still relies on imports. Food production and consumption are affected by economic, social, and ecological factors. The results of this research can provide scientific support for reasonable and sustainable production and consumption strategies in Kazakhstan.