Author(s)

M. Di Donato, A. Galli & F. M. Pulselli

Abstract

This paper shows an appraisal of local sustainability through an environmental accounting method applied to a region with reference to its population, human activities, natural cycles, infrastructures and other settings. Environmental resources locally used, whether directly or indirectly, from both renewable energy flows and storages of material are investigated. In this paper the Emergy Synthesis is applied to the Province of Pescara (Italy) and its districts, in order to evaluate the main flows of energy and materials that locally supply the territorial system, including human systems, with reference to their actual environmental cost. Once expressed in units of the same form of energy through the emergy evaluation, categories of resource consumptions and systems of varying scales and organization are compared. Furthermore, indexes of environmental performance based on emergy are calculated. Keywords: emergy analysis, sustainability indicators, environmental accounting. 1 Introduction This research proposes the results of an environmental assessment of a territorial system, which will be conducted through the emergy synthesis. The system, in fact, may be seen as an open thermodynamic system interacting and depending on the natural environment, whose existence would not be possible without the activity of survival systems. Emergy synthesis is an environmental accounting method based on thermodynamics that enables the integration of economic and ecological aspects:

Keywords

emergy analysis, sustainability indicators, environmental accounting.