Analysis on Characteristics of Regional Material Metabolism Based on MFA: A Case Study of Chengyang District in Qingdao

The method "Material Flow Analysis (MFA)" is one of effective tools to study law and quantification of material flow between economic system and ecological system. On the national level, economy-wide material flow analysis has been published for a number of countries. However, published studies on the regional or local level are still very limited and a standardized method does not exist yet. On the basis of framework of Material Flow Analysis proposed by Eurostat, the paper collects related data and analyzes material input and output for the Chengyang District in Qingdao. The results indicate that DMI and TMR in absolute number increase about 3.6 and 3.9 times respectively from 1995 to 2004. Fossil fuel and mineral contribute to about 50.3-76.3% of DMI. Imports of material increases about 5.0 times and becomes the most important contributor to DMI, which shows that local economic growth is highly dependent on resources from other regions and countries. DPO and TDO represent slow increasing trend, and DPO contributes to 22.2- 58.1% of TDO, suggesting local hidden flows are of obvious effect on TDO. The biggest component of DPO is C02, approximately accounting for 90% of DPO. The material productivity increases 57.7% in last decade, reflecting improvement of efficiency of resources utilization in some extent. However, compared to developed counties and regions, material productivity of Chengyang District is relatively low. Therefore, in order to promote the sustainability, it is essential to develop circular economy and enhance materials productivity.