Assessment of Urban Metabolism of Stockholm Royal Seaport : Through the Enhanced Economy Wide Material Flow Accounting Framework

Abstract: Material flows in Urban Metabolism play a key role for the purpose of building urban areas and growing the economy. There is lack of standard method for accounting of material flows within and across the boundaries of urban systems. This thesis aims to assess the Urban Metabolism of small-scale urban area through the application of the Economic Wide Material Flow Analysis and enhance the scope of the method by adding water flows, which could potentially become a basis for the development of the method in the future. First, the application of the Economic Wide Material Flow Analysis in urban areas was studied through a literature review and then the enhanced Economic Wide Material Flow Analysis was applied to Stockholm Royal Seaport using bottom-up data. Using bottom-up data resulted in detailed information, however, full comparison between urban areas was not possible due to data gaps. The results showed the importance of the method for enhancing Urban Metabolism analysis and amending resource management. Spotting available secondary and recycled resources in the socioeconomic system as a part of application of the method is beneficial to sustain the natural resources use. Since still the method is developing for small-scale urban areas, a mixture of this method and other recommended methods by having focus on data collection is suggested for integrating databases and comprehensive analysis.