Industrial Metabolism at the Regional Level: The Rhine Basin

Abstract

Simonis, editors.Indwtrial Metabolism is a new concept, proposed in 1989 by R.U.Ayres as a new analytical framework for assessing environmental problems.Borrowing a metaphor from biology, it takes cognisance of the fact that effective strategies for the reduction of pollution must consider all the processes by which an industrial society, like a living organism, takes in substances, and uses and disposes of them.As noted by Ayres, the current metabolism of industrial societies behaves more like organisms that existed before the evolution of photosynthesis.Those organisms obtained their sources of energy from anaerobic fermentation of organic materials stockpiled in the biosphere through natural geophysical processes.They excreted wastes which were at the same time noxious and nonrenewable.The current biosphere, however, based on respiration and photosynthesis, is an almost perfect recycling system.Thus, the challenge for modem industrialized societies is to create a new metabolism that can begin to approach the metabolism of the natural environment.This study, on the industrial metabolism of the Rhine Basin is interesting from several different aspects.The basin has undergone a significant evolution over the last several decades.Until about the mid-1970s, production and consumption were more or less coupled to the level of pollution.The Rhine Basin up to that time was undoubtedly one of the most productive and at the same time most polluted basins in the world.Now that is no longer true--the economy has continued to grow and the level of pollution has subsided significantly.Understanding how this decoupling came about could provide a wealth of information that could be applicable to other regions still trapped in the production-pollution syndrome.On the other hand, the problem of chemical pollution in the basin is far from being completely solved.Tens of thousands of tons of toxic chemicals, the legacy of previous decades of high levels of pollution, have been deposited in the forests, agricultural lands, and urban areas in the basin.Does this toxic load constitute a problem now, or has it been safely immobilized or dispersed in the environment?The analysis described in this paper on the effects of the cumulative cadmium load in agricultural soils suggests that indeed, the risk to human health from crop uptake of cadmium is significantly greater now than it was in 1960.Another use of studies in industrial metabolism is to provide a context within which policies for reducing emissions can be assessed.They expose important gaps in information and are useful in setting priorities for a range of policy options.And by presenting the "big picture" they help planners avoid costly mistakes based on a too narrow assessment of the sources and flows of toxic materials.The analysis of industrial metabolism of the Rhine Basin is one of several other studies which will be presented in the book mentioned above.The hope is that the examples provided by these studies will encourage more such analyses and will help in the formulation of policy alternatives that are better integrated and more directed toward the goals of longterm economic and ecological sustainability.