Multi Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism
The aim of Multi-Scale Integrated Assessment of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) is to be used as a discussion support tool based on its capacity to learn from trajectories of development and to build robust scenarios. MuSIASEM goes in line with the Post-normal Science as defined by Funtowicz and Ravetz, in the sense that it is thought to serve as a discussion support tool.
MuSIASEM is a recent and still evolving approach (developed by Giampietro and Mayumi as of 1997) that allows a representation of the performance of a system taking into account different factors and attributes, by relating and describing different (but working in parallel) non-equivalent domains (i.e., formulations of the same problem from different perspectives). This issue has been long discussed and difficulties arise when trying to solve such problems when dealing with sustainability and complex systems. Yet the MuSIASEM approach confronts the complexity implied by the available heterogeneous types of information, because these sources of data are irreducible and incommensurable in their nature. MuSIASEM functions via relating the biophysical and socioeconomic variables in an integrated way, so that it is possible to link the metabolism of societies with the potential constraints of the natural environment.
The “metabolism of human societies” is a notion used to characterize the processes of energy and material transformation in a society that are necessary for its continued existence. The societal metabolism within this contextualization can be described in terms of 1) energy transformations to maintain the system, 2) material flows, and 3) added value. The MuSIASEM, as its name indicates, is designed to characterize the societal metabolism into biophysical and economic terms at different scales. Using different scales of assessment (national, regional, local and households), we can include the relevant elements performing in the system and their relations across scales. MuSIASEM is an open framework able to take into account the economic, environmental, social, cultural, technical and political dimensions in an integrated analysis, accounting for different flows such as monetary, energy, waste or water. As a result, ultimately we can get “congruent” relations among the different set of variables.
The MuSIASEM grammar about societal metabolism is based on the basis of works of Georgescu-Roegen. When studying (perceiving/representing) the activity of a socio-economic process in terms of energy and material conversions, there are two different categories of elements which have to be considered in order to be able to perceive/represent them as a metabolic system: Georgescu-Roegen (1975) suggests to adopt this distinction – i.e. between flow coordinates (elements) and fund coordinates (elements) - for representing, in biophysical terms, the socio-economic process of production and consumption of goods and services:
* Fund coordinates (Capital, People, and Ricardian land) are agents that enter and exit the process, transforming input flows into output flows on the time scale of the representation. The funds determine the size of the system in which the events occur.
* Flow coordinates are elements that enter but do not exit the production process on the time scale of the representation; or, conversely, elements that exit without having entered the process (e.g., a new product). Flow coordinates include matter and energy in situ, controlled matter and energy, and dissipated matter and energy. The flow can be varied depending on the accessibility of a stock and on the capability of processing it, in the relative conversion.
Therefore, fund coordinates entail an overhead on the flow they are generating and do entail a constraint on the relative rate of the flows associated with them.