Challenges in Industrial Ecology
A special issue of Challenges (ISSN 2078-1547).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2012) | Viewed by 30186
Special Issue Editor
Interests: mathematical modeling and systems analysis of environmental processes; industrial pollution prevention; industrial ecology; the environmental chemistry of trace organic and inorganic substances; interfacial reactions; subsurface contaminant transport; hazardous waste management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Industrial Ecology is an interdisciplinary field of study that fosters an integrated understanding of the ways in which environmental, social, economic, and ethical dimensions can be integrated for holistic solutions to critical human problems. Although a relatively young science in the formal sense, the field has matured rapidly, making seminal contributions to our understanding of such phenomena as material and substance flows, life cycle assessment, environmental impact analysis, and sustainability science to name a few.
And yet the challenges to sustain human industry and its impacts continue to grow, encompassing such areas as:
- Food supply and food security
- Sustainability and resilience in urban systems
- The development of new energy supplies and their distribution
- The future of nuclear energy
- The economics of sustainability
- Resource supply and equity
- Reuse and control of wastes
- Lessening impacts of rapidly industrializing nations
- New integrated policies informed by industrial ecology
- Efficiency, consumption, and the “rebound effect”
- Economic growth and financial stability
- Links between environmental and social justice
- Connections between the sustainability and resilience of human-natural systems
- Global and local education challenges
This issue of “Challenges” invites scholars from all fields to contribute research and discussion that explore and illuminate core sustainability challenges ahead for this growing and dynamic field of study.
Prof. Dr. Thomas L. Theis
Guest Editor
Keywords
- industrial ecology
- life cycle impact analysis
- material flow analysis
- sustainability
- resilience
- human-natural systems
- industrial metabolism
- policy