ContributeJoin Us
ContributeAdd Research
About Urban Metabolism
ContributeAdd Publication
Online Material Flow Analysis Tool (OMAT)
MultipliCity - Data Portals
Add DataContribute
Data Collection Events
Existing Data Portals
Prototype: Cape Town, South Africa
Prototype: The Hague, Netherlands
Prototype: Beijing, China
Upcoming Data Portals
Apeldoorn, Netherlands Coming soon
Bødo, Norway Coming soon
Brussels, Belgium Coming soon
Høje Taastrup, Denmark Coming soon
Mikkeli, Finland Coming soon
Porto, Portugal Coming soon
Sevilla, Spain Coming soon
Toronto, Canada Coming soon
Your city?
Orange Theme
Metabolism of Cities
Metabolism of Islands
Publication #385
@article{reference_tag,
author = "Voskamp, Ilse M. and Stremke, Sven and Spiller, Marc and Perrotti, Daniela and van der Hoek, Jan Peter and Rijnaarts, Huub H. M.",
title = "Enhanced Performance of the Eurostat Method for Comprehensive Assessment of Urban Metabolism: A Material Flow Analysis of Amsterdam",
journal = "Journal of Industrial Ecology",
abstract = "Sustainable urban resource management depends essentially on a sound understanding of a city's resource flows. One established method for analyzing the urban metabolism (UM) is the Eurostat material flow analysis (MFA). However, for a comprehensive assessment of the UM, this method has its limitations. It does not account for all relevant resource flows, such as locally sourced resources, and it does not differentiate between flows that are associated with the city's resource consumption and resources that only pass through the city. This research sought to gain insights into the UM of Amsterdam by performing an MFA employing the Eurostat method. Modifications to that method were made to enhance its performance for comprehensive UM analyses. A case study of Amsterdam for the year 2012 was conducted and the results of the Eurostat and the modified Eurostat method were compared. The results show that Amsterdam's metabolism is dominated by water flows and by port-related throughput of fossil fuels. The modified Eurostat method provides a deeper understanding of the UM than the urban Eurostat MFA attributed to three major benefits of the proposed modifications. First, the MFA presents a more complete image of the flows in the UM. Second, the modified resource classification presents findings in more detail. Third, explicating throughput flows yields a much-improved insight into the nature of a city's imports, exports, and stock. Overall, these advancements provide a deeper understanding of the UM and make the MFA method more useful for sustainable urban resource management.",
doi = "10.1111/jiec.12461",
TY  - JOUR
T1 - Enhanced Performance of the Eurostat Method for Comprehensive Assessment of Urban Metabolism: A Material Flow Analysis of Amsterdam
AU - Voskamp, Ilse M. and Stremke, Sven and Spiller, Marc and Perrotti, Daniela and van der Hoek, Jan Peter and Rijnaarts, Huub H. M.
DO - 10.1111/jiec.12461
N2 - Sustainable urban resource management depends essentially on a sound understanding of a city's resource flows. One established method for analyzing the urban metabolism (UM) is the Eurostat material flow analysis (MFA). However, for a comprehensive assessment of the UM, this method has its limitations. It does not account for all relevant resource flows, such as locally sourced resources, and it does not differentiate between flows that are associated with the city's resource consumption and resources that only pass through the city. This research sought to gain insights into the UM of Amsterdam by performing an MFA employing the Eurostat method. Modifications to that method were made to enhance its performance for comprehensive UM analyses. A case study of Amsterdam for the year 2012 was conducted and the results of the Eurostat and the modified Eurostat method were compared. The results show that Amsterdam's metabolism is dominated by water flows and by port-related throughput of fossil fuels. The modified Eurostat method provides a deeper understanding of the UM than the urban Eurostat MFA attributed to three major benefits of the proposed modifications. First, the MFA presents a more complete image of the flows in the UM. Second, the modified resource classification presents findings in more detail. Third, explicating throughput flows yields a much-improved insight into the nature of a city's imports, exports, and stock. Overall, these advancements provide a deeper understanding of the UM and make the MFA method more useful for sustainable urban resource management.
Daniela Perrotti
Huub H. M. Rijnaarts
Ilse M. Voskamp
Jan Peter van der Hoek
Marc Spiller
Sven Stremke
Add a publication
Enhanced Performance of the Eurostat Method for Comprehensive Assessment of Urban Metabolism: A Material Flow Analysis of Amsterdam
Journal of Industrial Ecology
Sustainable urban resource management depends essentially on a sound understanding of a city's resource flows. One established method for analyzing the urban metabolism (UM) is the Eurostat material flow analysis (MFA). However, for a comprehensive assessment of the UM, this method has its limitations. It does not account for all relevant resource flows, such as locally sourced resources, and it does not differentiate between flows that are associated with the city's resource consumption and resources that only pass through the city. This research sought to gain insights into the UM of Amsterdam by performing an MFA employing the Eurostat method. Modifications to that method were made to enhance its performance for comprehensive UM analyses. A case study of Amsterdam for the year 2012 was conducted and the results of the Eurostat and the modified Eurostat method were compared. The results show that Amsterdam's metabolism is dominated by water flows and by port-related throughput of fossil fuels. The modified Eurostat method provides a deeper understanding of the UM than the urban Eurostat MFA attributed to three major benefits of the proposed modifications. First, the MFA presents a more complete image of the flows in the UM. Second, the modified resource classification presents findings in more detail. Third, explicating throughput flows yields a much-improved insight into the nature of a city's imports, exports, and stock. Overall, these advancements provide a deeper understanding of the UM and make the MFA method more useful for sustainable urban resource management.
Economy-Wide Material Flow Analysis (EW-MFA)
Single point in time
10.1111/jiec.12461
Reflections on the first Actionable Science for Urban Sustainability (un)conference (AScUS) 2020
Do you have data on resource flows?
We can use your help
Our source code is available on
Visit our twin site: