Emergy-based energy and material metabolism of the Yellow River basin

The Yellow River basin is an opening ecosystem exchanging energy and materials with the surrounding environment. Based on emergy as embodied solar energy, the social energy and materials metabolism of the Yellow River basin is aggregated into emergetic equivalent to assess the level of resource depletion, environmental impact and local sustainability. A set of emergy indices are also established to manifest the ecological status of the total river basin ecosystem. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.