Ecological network analysis of urban-industrial ecosystems

Sustainability of urban areas is paramount in the coming years as cities continue to grow in population and resource consumption. A number of methods to model cities have been developed, including material flow analysis and urban metabolism, but these accounting methods do not fully analyze the complex network dynamics present within cities. Ecological network analysis (ENA) provides a new perspective into these urban areas by using metrics designed for analysis of natural ecosystems. This study analyzes 29 urban-industrial ecosystems using ENA, comparing the networks to each other as well as comparing them to previously analyzed eco-industrial parks and natural food webs. It is found that these systems perform similar to other human-designed systems, which consistently lack in ecological performance when compared with the natural ecosystems. Additionally, the impact of specific actor types within these networks is shown indicating the importance of industry, agriculture, and the natural environment. Finally, the types of networks are determined to affect the ecological metrics, with the more linear-based energy networks having the worst performance. This new dataset of ecologically analyzed networks provides a deeper understanding of urban networks and their infrastructure, while providing useful information on how to potentially improve their sustainability.