Material Flow Analysis

Material flow analysis (MFA) (also referred to as substance flow analysis; SFA) is an analytical method of quantifying flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system. MFA is an important tool to assess the physical consequences of human activities and needs in the field of Industrial Ecology, where it is used on different spatial and temporal scales. Examples are accounting of material flows within certain industries and connected ecosystems, determination of indicators of material use by different societies, and development of strategies for improving the material flow systems in form of material flow management. Since 1990, research publications in the field of material flow analysis (MFA) have grown fast in the Journal of Industrial Ecology and in Ecological Economics ecological economics.

Read more about Material Flow Analysis:  Applications On Different Spatial and Temporal Scales, Historic Development of The Discipline, Recent Development, Relation To Other Industrial Ecology Methods

Famous quotes containing the words material, flow and/or analysis:

    Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
    William Burroughs (b. 1914)

    Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)