The Characteristics and Trends of Socioeconomic Metabolism in China

China has become the country with the largest resource use and has high levels of waste emissions that pose a great management challenge. To provide more details about environmental problems and to find effective solutions, this article analyzed the scale, structure, and trend of the socioeconomic metabolism in China during the period 1992–2014 based on economy‐wide material flow accounts (EW‐MFA), and predicted resource use during the period of the 13th Five‐Year Plan. The results of this study show that the scale of China's socioeconomic metabolism in China increased more than twofold, during 1992–2014. However, after 2011, with the economic slowdown, the growth rates of total material requirement (TMR), direct material input (DMI), and domestic processed output (DPO) began to decrease. China may reach an inflection point, but this point will probably not be approached before the year 2020. Material recycling (MR) has played an important role in improving resource productivity, improving it by 92.52 renminbi per tonne in 2014. Metallic minerals and fossil fuels are the main sources of hidden flow. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, construction waste, and agricultural emissions have become the major sources of DPO. Because of the 13th Five‐Year Plan, China may slow the growth rate of DMI and may save 10.26 gigatonnes of resources during 2015–2020. Resource productivity is predicted to increase by 15.91%. Imports and MR may play more important roles. These suggestions are made: (1) strengthening the recycling system; (2) stronger policies, especially in metallic mineral and fossil fuels; (3) developing management systems for CO₂ emissions, construction waste, and agricultural emissions; and (4) adjusting China's economic structure.     

Urban Metabolism in China Achieving Dematerialization and Decarbonization in Suzhou

Urban metabolism is a critical component of urban sustainability. On the basis of the driving force?pressure?state?response (DPSR) model and using material flow analysis, this article proposes a framework for sustainable urban management and policy assessment. A case study city in China, Suzhou, illustrates this framework. The results show that resource consumption (excluding water), water consumption, and waste generation (excluding carbon dioxide) in Suzhou after implementation of proposed policies will be 14% lower than 2005 levels, 4.5% higher, and 28.9% higher, respectively, in 2015. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in Suzhou will increase by 71.0% in 2015 over 2005 levels, whereas carbon intensity (CO₂ emissions per unit of gross domestic product) will decrease by 44.9%. Future pollution control in Suzhou should pay more attention to pollution from vehicles. In addition, goals for relative dematerialization of energy and decarbonization in Suzhou will be achieved before absolute ones are. In the short term, the urban metabolism of Suzhou in 2015 may meet corresponding urban objectives. In the longer term, however, reducing the city's resource demand and waste generation will pose challenges for the sustainability of Suzhou.     

Uncovering urban transportation infrastructure expansion and sustainability challenge in Bangkok: Insights from a material stock perspective

Development of transportation infrastructure that extends roads and railways in Bangkok has overlooked the negative environmental impact of construction material accumulation. To analyze the extent of this impact, we originally established road and railway's material intensity coefficients and investigated spatially explicit roadway and railway material stock (MS) for the years of 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, and 2037, based upon the master plans’ target year. We further analyzed how MS evolution relates to the city's socio-economic indicators and CO₂ emission. Significant growth is found in transportation MS during 2004–2019, and roadways particularly increased from 122 to 164 million metric tons (Mt). The master plans would require 43 and 6.55 Mt construction materials for roadway and railway extension, respectively, by 2037. More material-intensive roads (cross-provincial highways and major local roads) built to the suburbs of the cities and underground/elevated structures of the mass rapid transit system in dense urban areas will require three times the annual cement and steel consumption of that in the 2004–2019 period. Furthermore, a 2–3 fold increase in the number of registered vehicles and associated CO₂ emissions during the study period have brought questions to the transportation infrastructure MS efficiency. The findings of this study will enable informed decision-making regarding the concern of resource consumption and for considering environmentally friendly approaches in urban transportation planning for Bangkok and other developing cities.     

基于物质流分析方法的唐山市经济与环境关系的协整检验和分解

利用物质流分析方法(MFA)建立物质流账户,分析唐山市在经济 环境系统运行中物质投入量与产出量的阶段特征及物质投入和产出强度对经济发展的影响程度;使用计量经济学模型,分别对国内生产总值(GDP)、直接物质投入(DMI)和直接废弃物排放(DPO)进行单位根检验、Johansen协整检验、向量误差修正分析、脉冲响应和方差分解分析,探索了各指标之间的双向作用机制和长期关系.结果表明: 1992—2011年,唐山市DMI和DPO 均呈增长趋势,DMI的增幅高于DPO.DMI投入强度呈增长趋势,DPO产出强度呈波动下降趋势.GDP与DMI、DPO之间存在着长期稳定协整关系,指标间的作用关系经历了由波动到逐步平稳的过程.DMI与DPO在短期内会对经济发展起到较强的正向冲击作用,但是经济-环境系统会逐步消化这些影响,并对系统内外指标进行短期的动态调整,最终使系统表现出一种长期的均衡关系;经济发展受到经济规模效应的影响逐步增加.将各指标对GDP的贡献度予以分解,其中,DMI的贡献度上升,GDP的贡献度下降,DPO的贡献度变化不大.总体上,唐山市的经济发展遵循了资源型城市的传统生产轨迹,较大程度上依赖于物质投入,高能源消耗又加剧了环境污染.     

The Greenhouse Gas Footprint of China's Food System: An Analysis of Recent Trends and Future Scenarios

Food chain systems (FCSs), which begin in agricultural production and end in consumption and waste disposal, play a significant role in China's rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This article uses scenario analysis to show China's potential trajectories to a low‐carbon FCS. Between 1996 and 2010, the GHG footprint of China's FCSs increased from 1,308 to 1,618 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO₂‐eq), although the emissions intensity of all food categories, except for aquatic food, recorded steep declines. We project three scenarios to 2050 based on historical trends and plausible shifts in policies and environmental conditions: reference scenario; technology improvement scenario; and low GHG emissions scenario. The reference scenario is based on existing trends and exhibits a large growth in GHG emissions, increasing from 1,585 Mt CO₂‐eq in 2010 to 2,505 Mt CO₂‐eq in 2050. In the technology improvement scenario, emissions growth is driven by rising food demand, but that growth will be counterbalanced by gains in agricultural technology, causing GHG emissions to fall to 1,413 Mt CO₂‐eq by 2050. Combining technology improvement with the shift to healthier dietary patterns, GHG emissions in the low GHG emissions scenario will decline to 946 Mt CO₂‐eq in 2050, a drop of 41.5% compared with the level in 2010. We argue that these are realistic projections and are indeed indicative of China's overall strategy for low‐carbon development. Improving agricultural technology and shifting to a more balanced diet could significantly reduce the GHG footprint of China's FCSs. Furthermore, the transition to a low‐carbon FCS has potential cobenefits for land sustainability and public health.     

Weight under Steel Wheels: Material Stock and Flow Analysis of High‐Speed Rail in China

The construction of a nation‐wide high‐speed rail (HSR) network has emerged as a hugely expensive and ambitious infrastructure project in China. As of December 2012, some 8,800 kilometers (km) of double‐track HSR lines came into service in the country, accounting for 40% of the total HSR length in the world. The network is expected to expand to 34,000 km or longer in around two decades. As the first HSR system specially built and operated in an economically developing country, it helps integrate the sprawling economy and lift the quality of life of the increasing urban population. China's experiences in HSR are expected to be of value to other countries aiming to adopt bullet train systems, especially those at a similar level of industrialization and urbanization. This work specifically examines material stocks and flows associated with the HSR infrastructure construction in China. A major distinction from the construction of HSR tracks in Europe is that nearly 70% of the HSR tracks in China are laid upon bridges or inside tunnels, which are structures that demand great amounts of raw materials. The entire network, once completed by 2030, will cumulatively require 83 to 137 million tonnes (Mt) of steel and 560 to 920 Mt of cement. This is still a small share of China's use of material resources. Nonetheless, the massive application of the steel‐ and cement‐intensive structures deserves consideration when assessing the environmental performance of HSR over its entire life cycle.     

Materials Flow Accounting in Sweden Material Use for National Consumption and for Export

This article presents Swedish economy‐wide material flow accounts for the period 1987‐1998. It also shows possibilities for enhancing the international comparability of aggregated data on material use, by distinguishing between materials used for consumption and export purposes. The direct material input (DMI) is used as an aggregate measure to estimate the amounts of natural resources (except water and air) that are taken from nature into the economy within a year, including imports to and production within the region in question. The division of materials used for consumption and export purposes avoids double counting trade flows when DMI is applied to a group of countries. The annual DMI in Sweden for 1997‐1998, including production and imports, amounts to 24 to 27 metric tons per capita (t/c). The fossil fuel input varies only slightly over the period, from 3.2 t/c in 1991 to 3.6 t/c in 1996, a level deemed unsustainable by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The input of renewable raw materials varies between 8 and 9 t/c. Ores and minerals vary between 11 and 15 t/c. The DMI puts Sweden above estimates made for Germany, the United States, and Japan and in the same range as the Netherlands. The differences in these values can mainly be explained by the relative importance of exports as compared to the size of the economy and by the variation in system boundaries for the data on natural resources. The system boundaries and data sources for natural resources need to be further defined to make the measures fully comparable. Around 5 t/c is exported, whereas the rest, around 20 t/c, is national consumption. The aggregate direct material consumption (DMC), which is the DMI minus exports, communicates the magnitude of resource use. Comparisons of the input with solid waste statistics indicate that quantity of waste (excluding mining waste) in Sweden is equal to about 10% relative of the total resource use. Material collected for recycling by the waste management system is equal to about 5% of the amount of virgin resources brought into society each year.     

A Study of Energy Consumption and Exhaust Emissions from Beijing's Civil Vehicles from Years 2008 to 2020

The number of Beijing's civil vehicles is growing rapidly due to the great support of the automobile industry and the Chinese government and the increasing average per capita income of China's people. Exhaust emissions from vehicles have already become the main source of Beijing's air pollution. Based on the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP), this article predicts the energy consumption and exhaust emissions from Beijing's civil vehicles. Also, we estimated the reduction potentials of China's new fuel consumption standards and exhaust pollutants standards that will be implemented from 2008 to 2020. Two scenarios were developed: “Business as Usual” (BAU) and “New Standard” (NS). In the BAU scenario, the Chinese government would do nothing to improve the fuel consumption standards and exhaust pollutants standards in the future. In the NS scenario, the Chinese government would implement more strict fuel consumption standards and exhaust pollutants standards for Beijing's civil vehicles. By comparing the results of the two scenarios for year 2020, the energy consumption will experience a reduction of 7.8%, and the exhaust pollutants CO, HC, NO_X, PM, and the emissions of CO₂ would decrease by 43.3%, 36.4%, 60.3%, 81.2%, and 7.8%, respectively.     

The Metabolic Transition in Japan

The notion of a (socio‐) metabolic transition has been used to describe fundamental changes in socioeconomic energy and material use during industrialization. During the last century, Japan developed from a largely agrarian economy to one of the world's leading industrial nations. It is one of the few industrial countries that has experienced prolonged dematerialization and recently has adopted a rigorous resource policy. This article investigates changes in Japan's metabolism during industrialization on the basis of a material flow account for the period from 1878 to 2005. It presents annual data for material extraction, trade, and domestic consumption by major material group and explores the relations among population growth, economic development, and material (and energy) use. During the observed period, the size of Japan's metabolism grew by a factor of 40, and the share of mineral and fossil materials in domestic material consumption (DMC) grew to more than 90%. Much of the growth in the Japanese metabolism was based on imported materials and occurred in only 20 years after World War II (WWII), when Japan rapidly built up large stocks of built infrastructure, developed heavy industry, and adopted patterns of mass production and consumption. The surge in material use came to an abrupt halt with the first oil crisis, however. Material use stabilized, and the economy eventually began to dematerialize. Although gross domestic product (GDP) grew much faster than material use, improvements in material intensity are a relatively recent phenomenon. Japan emerges as a role model for the metabolic transition but is also exceptional in many ways.     

Material and Energy Flows and Environmental Impacts of the Internet in Switzerland

The Internet leads to material and energy consumption as well as various environmental impacts on both the regional and global scale. Yet, assessments of the Internet's energy consumption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions are still rare, and assessments of material flows and further environmental impacts are virtually non‐existent. This article investigates material flows, the direct energy consumption during the use phase, as well as environmental impacts linked to the service, “Internet in Switzerland.” In our model, the service, Internet in Switzerland, is divided into various Internet participant categories. All devices used to access or provide Internet services are merged in a limited number of equipment families and, as such, included in an inventory of the existing infrastructure (stock). Based on this inventory, a material flow analysis (MFA) is performed, which includes the current stock as well as flows resulting from growth and disposal. The direct energy consumption for the operation of the infrastructure is quantified. Environmental impacts are calculated with a life cycle assessment approach, using the ecoinvent database and the software, SimaPro, applying four different methods. The MFA results in a 2009 stock of 98,100 tonnes. Approximately 4,130 gigawatt hours per year, or 7% of the total Swiss electricity consumption, were used in 2009 to operate the Swiss infrastructure. The environmental impacts caused during the production and use phases vary significantly depending on the assessment method chosen. The disposal phase had mainly positive impacts as a result of material recovery.     

Regional material flow accounts for China: Examining China's natural resource use at the provincial and national level

Over the last three decades, China has experienced the most dynamic economic development lifting living standards and resulting in fast‐growing use of natural resources. In the past, the focus has been on national MFA accounts which do not do justice to the second largest economy, home to 19% of the world population and having 30% of global material use. In this research, we calculate material extraction for China at the regional level during 1995–2015 using the most recent available statistical data and applying the most up‐to‐date international calculation methods. In particular, we combine a bottom‐up and top‐down approach for constructing the dataset of China's economically used Domestic Extraction (DEU) in an integrated way. This approach also improves the Chinese national material flow accounts and allows us to present a reliable database of DE of materials for China to date. Our new dataset provides the basis for calculating material footprints and environmental impacts of China's regions. The dataset enables us to evaluate regional resource efficiency trends in China. We find that during the past two decades, China's material use has grown strongly from 11.7 billion tonnes in 1995 to 35.4 billion tonnes in 2015. Material use has accelerated between 2000 and 2010 but slowed down between 2010 and 2015 reflecting the economic contraction caused by the Global Financial Crisis which reduced the global demand for China's manufacturing and a reorientation of China's economic policy settings toward quality of growth. Unsurprisingly, different regions play different roles in the supply chain of materials, achieving different economic performances resulting in very diverse material efficiency outcomes. This information is important to allow for a targeted policy approach to increase resource efficiency, reduce environmental impacts of resource use, and grow wellbeing in China with large positive implications for global sustainability. This study provides the basis for the development of relevant resource management policies for different regions in the future.     

Decoupling Analysis of the Environmental Mountain—with Case Studies from China

The resource‐development trajectory of developed countries after the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can be portrayed as an “environmental mountain” (EM). It is important for developing countries to decouple their resource use from economic growth and tunnel through the EM. In this study, we embedded the decoupling indicators for resource use and waste emissions into EM curves to quantify China's progress in tunneling through the EM over a specific time period. Five case studies regarding the conditions required for decoupling energy consumption, crude steel production, cement production, CO₂ emissions, and SO₂ emissions from economic growth in China were conducted. The results indicated that during 1985–2010 the trajectories of energy consumption, and CO₂ and SO₂ emissions in China met the requirements for tunneling through the EM, but the trajectories of cement and steel production did not. Based on these results, suggestions regarding China's environmental policies are provided to enable the country to tunnel through the EM.     

Transforming the Cement Industry into a Key Environmental Infrastructure for Urban Ecosystem: A Case Study of an Industrial City in China

Under the dual pressure of environmental constraints and increasingly thin profit margins, the cement industry in China is in a predicament. To alleviate the environmental and the economic pressure of the cement industry and to tackle the problem of delayed environmental infrastructure construction, this article introduced an urban ecosystem in which the cement industry was transformed into an effective complement to environmental infrastructure. The Xinfeng Cement Industrial Park in China, which has a production capacity of 5 million tonnes per annum (Mt/a) of clinker, was chosen as a case study. Our methodology involved proposing technologies to develop an efficient cement plant‐centered urban ecosystem; evaluating its environmental and economic performance; identifying barriers in its promotion; and proposing supportive policies. Results showed that the city's waste recycling ratio rose from about 50% to 70%, saving 0.6 Mt/a of coal equivalent and reducing about 3.0 Mt/a of resulting carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The life span of the city's landfill site was extended by about 30 years. The total investment was 3.2 billion yuan (about US$480 million), 1 with an average payback period of 3 years. The Xinfeng Cement Industrial Park was transformed from an energy‐intensive consumer and a significant CO₂ emitter to a key industrial waste recycler, a crucial municipal waste co‐processor, an important new building material supplier, and a potential energy producer. Last, the “not‐in‐my‐back‐yard” (NIMBY) effect from constructing new environmental infrastructure was also avoided.     

A Comprehensive Material Flow Account for Lao PDR to Inform Environmental and Sustainability Policy

Modern environmental and sustainability policy that acknowledges the linkages between socioeconomic processes and environmental pressures and impacts, and designs policies to decouple economic activity from environmental pressures and impacts, requires a sophisticated and comprehensive knowledge base. The concept of industrial metabolism provides a sound conceptual base, and material flow accounting—including primary material inputs and outflows of waste and emissions—provides a well‐accepted operationalization. Studies presenting a comprehensive material flow account for a national economy are rare, especially for developing countries. Countries such as Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR or Laos) face dual objectives of improving the material standard of living of their people while managing natural resources sustainably and mitigating adverse environmental impacts from growing resource throughput. Our research fills a knowledge gap, presents a comprehensive account of material inputs and outflows of waste and emissions for the Lao PDR national economy, and applies the accounting approach for a low‐income economy in Asia. We present a material balance for the years 2000 and 2015. For this research, we used data from Lao PDR national statistics and the accounting guidelines of the European Statistical Office (Eurostat), which pioneered the use of material flow data as part of its official statistical reporting. We demonstrate the feasibility of the accounting approach and discuss the robustness of results using uncertainty analysis conducted with statistical approaches commonly used in the field of industrial ecology, including Gauss's law of error propagation and Monte Carlo simulation. We find that the fast‐changing scale and composition of Lao PDR material flows, waste, and emissions presents challenges to the existing policy capacity and will require investment into governance of changed patterns of material use, waste disposal, and emissions. We consider the data analysis sufficiently robust to inform such a change in policy direction.     

基于物质流分析和数据包络分析的区域生态效率评价——以江苏省为例

区域生态效率(eco-efficiency)评价是考量区域可持发展的重要内容.基于物质流分析(material flow analysis, MFA)构建区域生态效率评价指标体系,并将污染物排放作为一种非期望输入引入到数据包络分析(data envelopment analysis, DEA)模型中,以江苏省(1990～2005年)为例进行生态效率分析评价.结果表明,江苏省的区域生态效率在1990～2005年期间呈现逐步上升的趋势.但是,同期的总物质投入(total material input, TMI)、物质需求总量(total material requirement, TMR)和污染物排放量也呈上升趋势.因此,江苏省社会经济发展和环境影响总体上呈现"弱脱钩(weak de-link)".     

Greening China's Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure in the Face of Rapid Development: Analysis Based on Material Stock and Flow through 2050

Wastewater treatment infrastructure (WWTI) construction in China has entered an accelerated stage of development in recent years as a result of rapid economic growth, urbanization, and the demand for improving water quality. As a result, a large amount of resources and materials will be allocated for the WWTI, and it is particularly important to find ways to reduce resource consumption effectively so that social dematerialization and sustainable development can be achieved. In this study, we employed the dynamic material flow model to estimate the material flows and stocks of WWTIs and the associated carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions through 2050, considering effects of a rise in water consumption, a longer lifetime, and an increased material recycling rate. Our results indicate that material consumption in WWTIs will increase rapidly through 2025 to meet the needs of the increased volume of discharged wastewater as well as to overcome the shortage of existing wastewater treatment plants. In contrast with the moderate effects of rise in water consumption, prolonging the lifetime will greatly reduce material consumption in WWTI construction during the period 2030–2050, and approximately 60% of the total material input will be saved in the medium‐lifetime scenario, compared with the short‐lifetime scenario. Material output and CO₂ emissions associated with WWTIs will be reduced by 87% and 37%, respectively, in the medium‐lifetime scenario, compared with the short‐lifetime scenario, under high‐water‐consumption growth. Our results highlight the great importance of pipeline construction and cement consumption in resource consumption associated with WWTI construction in China. Moreover, this study also examined the potential ways to reduce material consumption in WWTI construction in the context of the demand chain, the design, construction, operation and management, and demolition.     

Resource Use in Small Island States

Iceland and Trinidad and Tobago are small open, high‐income island economies with very specific resource‐use patterns. This article presents a material flow analysis (MFA) for the two countries covering a time period of nearly five decades. Both countries have a narrow domestic resource base, their economy being largely based on the exploitation of one or two key resources for export production. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, the physical economy is dominated by oil and natural gas extraction and petrochemical industries, whereas Iceland's economy for centuries has been based on fisheries. More recently, abundant hydropower and geothermal heat were the basis for the establishment of large export‐oriented metal processing industries, which fully depend on imported raw materials and make use of domestic renewable electricity. Both countries are highly dependent on these natural resources and vulnerable to overexploitation and price developments. We show how the export‐oriented industries lead to high and growing levels of per capita material and energy use and carbon dioxide emissions resulting from large amounts of processing wastes and energy consumption in production processes. The example of small open economies with an industrial production system focused on few, but abundant, key resources and of comparatively low complexity provides interesting insights of how resource endowment paired with availability or absence of infrastructure and specific institutional arrangements drives domestic resource‐use patterns. This also contributes to a better understanding and interpretation of MFA indicators, such as domestic material consumption.     

Cape Town’s Metabolism: Insights from a Material Flow Analysis

This work aims to contribute to the number of urban metabolism case studies using a standardized methodology. An economy‐wide material flow analysis (EW‐MFA) was conducted on the Metropolitan Municipality of Cape Town (South Africa) for the year 2013, using the Eurostat framework. The study provides insights into the city's metabolism through various indicators including direct material input (DMI), domestic material consumption (DMC), and direct material output (DMO), among others. In order to report on the uncertainty of the data, a set of data quality indicators originating from the life cycle assessment literature was used. The results show that domestic extraction involves significant quantities of non‐metallic minerals, and that imports consist primarily of biomass and fossil fuels. The role of the city as a regional hub is also made clear from this study and illustrated by large quantities of food and other materials flowing through the city on their way to or from international markets. The results are compared with indicators from other cities and with previous metabolism work done on Cape Town. To fully grasp the impacts of the city's metabolism, more work needs to be done. It will be necessary to understand the upstream impact of local consumption, and consumption patterns should be differentiated on a more nuanced level (taking into account large differences between household income levels as well as separating the metabolism of industry and commerce from residential consumption).     

Assessment of Environmental Impacts of an Aging and Stagnating Water Supply Pipeline Network

Aging urban infrastructure is a common phenomenon in industrialized countries. The urban water supply pipeline network in the city of Oslo is an example. Even as it faces increasing operational, maintenance, and management challenges, it needs to better its environmental performance by reducing, for instance, the associated greenhouse gas emissions. In this article the authors examine the environmental life cycle performance of Oslo's water supply pipelines by analyzing annual resource consumption and emissions as well as life cycle assessment (LCA) impact potentials over a period of 16 years, taking into account the production/manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance, rehabilitation, and retirement of pipelines. It is seen that the water supply pipeline network of Oslo has already reached a state of saturation on a per capita basis, that is, it is not expanding any more relative to the population it serves, and the stock is now rapidly aging. This article is part of a total urban water cycle system analysis for Oslo, and analyzes more specifically the environmental impacts from the material flows in the water distribution network, examining six environmental impact categories using the SimaPro (version 7.1.8) software, Ecoinvent database, and the CML 2001 (version 2.04) methodology. The long‐term management of stocks calls for a strong focus on cost optimization, energy efficiency, and environmental friendliness. Global warming and abiotic depletion emerge as the major impact categories from the water pipeline system, and the largest contribution is from the production and installation phases and the medium‐size pipelines in the network.     

基于MFA和DEA的区域经济环境效率评价-以辽宁省为例

对经济与环境效率的科学评价是实现区域可持续发展的前提。运用物质流分析将辽宁省经济系统中数据进行物质化处理,再利用改进的数据包络分析模型对环境和经济效率进行综合评价。结果表明:辽宁省物资消费不主要依赖于进口,向其它地区物质输出量大;环境效率评价的综合效率主要受规模因素影响而显著低于纯技术效率,而整体经济的综合效率却主要受纯技术效率影响而下降。第二产业比重依然偏大的产业结构特征是导致上述结果的主因。进一步改造提升传统产业,发展战略性新兴产业,提高第三产业发展水平,扩大环保规模,促进居民生活质量水平全面提升,将是辽宁省以及与之相似的资源依赖型区域可持续发展的方向。