Spatial-temporal views on urban construction material flow and stock towards sustainability

This research begins by summarising the principles of Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and its different dimensions from a methodological perspective. Afterwards, it applies a bottom-up method and temporal-spatial views analysis to urban construction material flow and stock with Geographical Information System (GIS) data. Due to a lack of availability of spatial data, GIS-based material flow and stock research are static (with data from only one year), limiting the extent to which scholars and policy makers can understand changes to the spatial structure of the urban environment and material metabolism that would have implications for sustainable urban policy. Therefore, a 4d-GIS method is developed in order to refine the spatial data and time series, addressing this gap and elucidating the urban stock variation over time. This study then introduces several cases of material flow and stock over space and time, showing that a 4d-GIS method is a powerful tool for revealing the evolution of construction material in buildings. It is also beneficial for estimating the lifetime of different cohorts which refers to buildings constructed in the same period, and for understanding the waste potential of demolition. This has the benefit of revealing the impact of socio-economic development on the material flow and stock and it draws out the challenges of speeding up societal metabolism towards sustainable development and provides an early warning for future waste management.