The Citizens' Material Flow Consumption Analysis - A Case Study of Chengdu

摘要

The root of material flow accounting and analysis (MFA) could be traced back to social metabolism theory in 1857, but it was ameliorated by Abel Wolman, Kenneth Boulding, and Donella Meadows studying Industrial Metabolism during 1960s-1970s. By using MFA, the inherence of resources and economic developing could be impersonally evaluated and it also can be used to help governments to shape their developing courses. In past, MFA and MFA relevant studies were focus on macroeconomics, such as a country’s MFA. In recent years, there have been some MFA studies about one city’s MFA or one industrial MFA. In China, there were some studies about Guiyang’s MFA (Guiyang is capital of Guizhou Province, in the southwest of China), Shanghai’s MFA, Beijing’s cement industrial MFA and so on. The aim of this paper is to design a flow chart and excogitate a method to account the citizens’ material flow consumption per person, in order to provide some reference information to help government. Based on this method, this paper evaluates the citizens’ material flow consumption of Chengdu per person. The conclusions are: from 1990 to 2004, the consumption of the citizens’ material flow consumption per person rose and the food consumption descended.