Anthropogenic metabolism
Encyclopedia
"Anthropogenic metabolism" is a term used in material flow analysis
, substance flow analysis and waste management
. It includes:
Material flow analysis
Material flow analysis is an analytical method of quantifying flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system. MFA is an important tool to assess the physical consequences of human activities and needs in the field of Industrial Ecology, where it is used on different spatial...
, substance flow analysis and waste management
Waste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
. It includes:
"not only the physiological metabolismMetabolismMetabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
but also includes the thousands of goods and substances necessary to sustain modern life. Anthropogenic stands for man-made. The anthroposphereAnthroposphereThe anthroposphere is that part of the environment that is made or modified by humans for use in human activities and human habitats...
is the sphereSphere (disambiguation)A sphere is an object shaped like a ball and can also be used to refer to a sphere-like region or shell.Sphere may also refer to:-In mathematics:* Ball , the volume inside a sphere...
in which human activities take place, sometimes called technosphereTechnoSphereTechnoSphere was an online digital environment launched on September 1, 1995 and hosted on a computer at a UK university. TechnoSphere, created by and Gordon Selley, was a place where users from around the globe could create creatures and release them into the 3D environment, described by the...
or biosphereBiosphereThe biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
. Today, the most important man-made material flows are due to activities such as cleaning, transporting, residing and communicating. These activities were of little metabolic significance in prehistoric times."
Further reading
- Baccini, Peter and Brunner, Paul H., Metabolism of the Anthroposphere, Springer, 1991, Heidelberg, Berlin, New York, (ISBN 978-3-540-53778-6). New edition autumn 2011, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, ISBN 978-0-262-01665-0.