Exploratory Data Analysis of the Multilevel Anthropogenic Copper Cycle

Abstract

A comprehensive multilevel contemporary cycle for stocks and flows of copper is analyzed by the tools of exploratory data analysis (EDA). The analysis is performed at three discrete spatial levels--country (56 countries or country groups that comprise essentially all anthropogenic stocks and flows of copper), eight world regions, and the planet as a whole. Among the most interesting results are the following: (1) EDA is employable and valuable for use in the analysis of material flows, especially those across multiple spatial levels; (2) All distributions of country-level stock and flow data are highly skewed, a few countries having large magnitudes, many having small magnitudes; (3) Rates of fabrication of copper-containing products for the countries are poorly correlated with rates of extraction, reflecting the fact that many countries that extract copper do not fabricate products from copper to any significant degree and vice versa; (4) Virtually all countries are adding copper to stock (in pipe, wire, etc.); These rates of addition are highly correlated with rates of copper entering use in all regions and are higher in regions under vigorous development; (5) With weak confidence, the rate of copper landfilling by regions is about one-half the rate of copper discarded; (6) The statistical distributions of both country-level and regional-level copper cycle parameters have successively lower standard deviations at later life stages; and (7) Copper flow distributions at different life stages tend to reflect those of lower spatial level extreme values, but Asia's and Europe's regional patterns are much more reflective of country-level distributions as a whole.