The Science of Urban Metabolism and Sustainability

TL;DR

This paper reviews the emerging field of Urban Metabolism and Sustainability research, analyzing its structure, methods, and authorship to inform future research policies and understand its development until 2019.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the structure, evolution, and key methodologies of Urban Metabolism research, highlighting its growth and demographic characteristics.

Findings

Urban Metabolism is an emerging, growing field until 2019.

Main disciplines include environmental science and ecology.

Common methods are Ecological Network Analysis, Life Cycle Assessment, and Material Flow Analysis.

Abstract

Understanding the quantitative patterns behind scientific disciplines is fundamental for informed research policy. While many fields have been studied from this perspective, Urban Science (USc) and its subfields remain underexplored. As organisms, urban systems rely on materials and energy inputs and transformation (i.e. metabolism) to sustain essential dynamics. This concept has been adopted by various disciplines, including architecture and sociology, and by those focused on metabolic processes, such as ecology and industrial ecology. This study addresses the structure and evolution of Urban Metabolism (UM) and Sustainability research, analyzing articles by disciplines, study subjects (e.g., cities, regions), methodologies, and author diversity (nationality and gender). Our review suggests that UM is an emerging field that grew until 2019, primarily addressed by environmental science and ecology. Common methods include Ecological Network Analysis, and Life Cycle Assessment, and Material Flow Analysis, focusing flows over stocks, ecosystem dynamics and evolutionary perspectives of the urban system. Authors are predominantly from China and the USA, and there are less gender gaps compared to general science research. Our analysis identifies relevant challenges that have become evident in the statistical properties of this scientific field and which might be helpful for the design of improved research policies.