Infrastructure Ecology: ecological network analysis of material and energy flow in human systems
Abstract:
Industrial ecology seeks to determine how to construct circular methods of production that embody the sustainability and resilience of natural cycles. Although it has used ecological systems as models or metaphor, the field has been less successful at incorporating deep ecological principles. Ecological Network Analysis (ENA) represents input/output methods to examine the relationship of ecological structure to performance, particularly the cycling of material/energy and the capacity to resist perturbation. I will discuss our applications of ENA to examine circular industrial processes, how they compare to natural ecologies, important structural and flow based metrics that govern performance, and basic design rules to improve cycling and resilience, using examples across a range of scales.
Bio
Marc Weissburg is a Professor of Biological Sciences, co-founder and co-director of The Center for Biological Sciences and Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Brook Byers Institute of Sustainability Fellow. He has taught biologically inspired design to scientists, engineers, and professionals at all levels, developed pedagogical approaches to teaching bioinspired design, and currently is examining the use of ecological networks as deep models for circular economies in several National Science Foundation funded grants and industry collaborations.