Anthropogenic Metabolism
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Anthropogenic metabolism, also referred to as metabolism of the anthroposphere, is a term used in
industrial ecology Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resource ...
, material flow analysis, and
waste management Waste management or waste disposal includes the processes and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes the collection, transport, treatment, and disposal of waste, together with monitor ...
to describe the material and energy turnover of human society. It emerges from the application of
systems thinking Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts.Anderson, Virginia, & Johnson, Lauren (1997). ''Systems Thinking Ba ...
to the industrial and other man-made activities and it is a central concept of
sustainable development Sustainable development is an approach to growth and Human development (economics), human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General ...
. In modern societies, the bulk of anthropogenic (man-made) material flows is related to one of the following activities:
sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems ...
,
transportation Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...
, habitation, and
communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...
, which were "of little metabolic significance in prehistoric times". Global man-made stocks of steel in buildings, infrastructure, and vehicles, for example, amount to about 25 Gigatonnes (more than three tonnes per person), a figure that is surpassed only by construction materials such as concrete. Sustainable development is closely linked to the design of a sustainable anthropogenic metabolism, which will entail substantial changes in the energy and material turnover of the different human activities. Anthropogenic metabolism can be seen as synonymous to social or socioeconomic metabolism. It comprises both industrial metabolism and urban metabolism.


Negative effects

In layman's terms, anthropogenic metabolism indicates the human impact on the world by the modern industrialized world. Much of these impacts include
waste management Waste management or waste disposal includes the processes and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes the collection, transport, treatment, and disposal of waste, together with monitor ...
,
ecological footprint The ecological footprint measures human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies. It tracks human demand on nature through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biolo ...
s, water footprints, and flow analysis (i.e., the rate at which each human depleted the energy around them). Most anthropogenic metabolism happens in developed countries. According to Rosales, "Economic growth is at present the main cause of increased climate change, and climate change is a main mechanism of
biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in Biodiversity, b ...
; because of this, economic growth is a major catalyst of biodiversity loss." A water footprint is the amount of water that each person uses in their daily lives. Most of the world's water is salt water which cannot be used in human food or water supplies. Therefore, the freshwater sources that were once plentiful are now being diminished due to anthropogenic metabolism of the growing population. The water footprint encompasses how much
fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salt (chemistry), salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include ...
is needed for each consumer's needs. According to J. Allan, "there is a huge impact of water use on stores of surface and
groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...
and on flows to which
water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...
is returned after use. These impacts are shown to be particularly high for manufacturing industries. For example, that there are less than 10 economies worldwide that have a significant water surplus, but that these economies have successfully met, or have the potential to meet, the water deficits of the other 190 economies. Consumers enjoy the delusion of food and water security provided by
virtual water The virtual water trade is the hidden flow of water in food or other commodities that are traded from one place to another. Other terms for it are embedded or embodied water. The virtual water trade is the idea that virtual water is exchanged along ...
trade. In addition, the ecological footprint is a more economical and land-focused way of looking at human impact. Developed countries tend to have higher ecological footprints, which do not strictly correspond to a country's total population. According to research by Dias de Oliveira, Vaughan and Rykiel, "The Ecological Footprint...is an accounting tool based on two fundamental concepts,
sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...
and
carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an ecosystem is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as the ...
. It makes it possible to estimate the
resource consumption Resource consumption is about the consumption of non-renewable, or less often, renewable resources. Specifically, it may refer to: * water consumption * energy consumption ** electric energy consumption ** world energy consumption * natural ...
and waste assimilation requirements of a defined
human population In world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and histor ...
or economy sector in terms of corresponding productive land area." One of the major cycles that humans can contribute to that cause a major impact on
climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
is the
nitrogen cycle The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into multiple chemical forms as it circulates among atmosphere, atmospheric, terrestrial ecosystem, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems. The conversion of nitrogen can ...
. This comes from nitrogen fertilizers that humans use. Gruber and Galloway have researched, "The massive acceleration of the nitrogen cycle caused by the production and industrial use of artificial
nitrogen Nitrogen is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetal and the lightest member of pnictogen, group 15 of the periodic table, often called the Pnictogen, pnictogens. ...
fertilizers worldwide has led to a range of environmental problems. Most important is how the availability of nitrogen will affect the capacity of Earth's biosphere to continue absorbing
carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...
from the
atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...
and to thereby continue helping to mitigate climate change." The carbon cycle is another major contributor to climate change primarily from anthropogenic metabolism. A couple examples of how humans contribute to the carbon in the atmosphere is by burning fossil fuels and deforestation. By taking a close look at the carbon cycle Peng, Thomas and Tian have discovered that, "It is recognized that human activities, such as
fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geolog ...
burning, land-use change, and forest harvesting at a large scale, have resulted in the increase of
greenhouse gases Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of planets such as the Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. T ...
in the atmosphere since the onset of the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...
. The increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, particularly in the atmosphere, is believed to have induced climate change and
global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...
." Impact of climate change extend beyond humans. There is a forecast for extinctions of species because of their habitats being affected. An example of this is marine animals. There are major impacts on the marine systems as a result of anthropogenic metabolism, according to Blaustein, the dramatic findings indicate that "every square kilometer saffected by some anthropogenic driver of ecological change".Blaustein, R. (2008). Global Human Impacts. Bioscience, 58(4), 376. The negative effects of anthropogenic metabolism are seen through the water footprint, ecological footprint,
carbon cycle The carbon cycle is a part of the biogeochemical cycle where carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of Earth. Other major biogeochemical cycles include the nitrogen cycle and the water cycl ...
, and the nitrogen cycle. Studies on the marine ecosystem that show major impacts by humans and developed countries which include more industries, thus more anthropogenic metabolism.


See also

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References


Further reading

* Baccini, Peter and Brunner, Paul H., Metabolism of the Anthroposphere, Springer, 1991, Heidelberg, Berlin, New York, (). New edition March 2012, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, {{ISBN, 978-0-262-01665-0. Waste management concepts Industrial ecology