The diagram shows the input/output flows of material in the Mauna Loa macadamia nut processing plant. Annual production is 3.4 tons.

“From a materials standpoint the plant exhibits an impressive import/export ratio, relying on imports to the island for only a small portion of its total production requirements.”

All flows are in Gg (that’s 10E9 grams, or 1000 tons). Apparently a tiny problem with the recycled biomass loop flows, but otherwise a nice one. Small and trace flows not to scale for good.

Material Flow Accounting (MFA) “is the study of material flows on a national or regional scale. It is therefore sometimes also referred to as regional, national or economy-wide material flow analysis.” (Wikipedia). MFA is a research field in industrial ecology. As the authors of the report write,

Using an island as a unit of analysis is valuable both to the researcher and to those interested in the sustainability of the island itself. The researcher benefits from the island’s clear boundaries (most often defined by a surrounding water body) and a relative advantage in data collection provided by the fact that borders are monitored. Material flows are therefore relatively easier to understand on islands than in larger, more complex non‐island systems.

I have been posting about the use of Sankey diagrams in MFA before, and with few exceptions (Material Flow Sankey Diagram of Japan), have found that examples of Sankey diagrams for national MFA accounts typically are limited to selected bulk materials (e.g. biomass in Switzerland, gold flows in the U.S.).

Flows in the above Sankey diagram for the island of Hawai’i are in gigagrams (kilotonnes) and refer to the year 2005. Inputs are shown on the left side, and the fate of those inputs can be seen as exits to the right. More than 75% of the material flows are imported from off the island, the majority of these flows (57%) are construction materials. Consequently, road and building construction are the largest net addition to stocks with almost 2,000 kilotonnes.

The Sankey diagram has some minor flaws, regarding scale of the flows. Look for example to the division of the landfilled waste arrow (422 kt) into three almost equal portions, which are supposed to represent 79.3 kt, 125.1 kt and 217.7 kt. Also the width of the volcanic rock input flow (429.7 kt) is about four times the width of the machinery input flow (representing 200.2 kt). Still, I think it is a good Sankey diagram, and I wouldn’t mind joining the research group on their next visit to the islands…

The left part of the diagram shows domestic supply of primary and secondary gold, as well as imports to the U.S., the right part distribution and use of gold. The U.S. is a net gold exporter. 318 metric tons gold bullion went to Fort Knox (presumably) that year. 276 metric tons were fabricated into products, mainly jewelry. At the same time 175 metric tons of new and old gold scrap were recycled. Along with the 282 metric tons out of primary production they are fed back into the production cycle.

The diagram has gold/light brown colored Sankey arrows that go along well with the topic. A text label has been forgotten in the left part.

The overall structure of biomass flows is given in a generic layout and as Sankey diagrams with proportional arrow magnitudes for mass flows (unit is in 1000 tons, based on dry matter) as well as for energy content (in GWh, based on lower heat value of dry matter). These overview diagrams are structured in three columns ‘Production’, ‘Conversion’, and ‘Use/Disposal’. Imports are from top, exports to the bottom. This very clear structure for both mass and energy flows makes the complex diagrams easier to comprehend. These overview Sankey diagrams are available for download as a separate PDF file (still 3,2 MB)

The main diagram is then broken down into individual Sankey diagrams for the different sectors involved, such as plant production (PLB), animal farming (THA), and forestry (WAW) in the production column (orange colored processes), or food industry (LMI) and wood/paper industry (HPI) in the conversion sector (green colored process). Finally, in the use/disposal sector (red colored processes) we find goods consumption (WAK) along with energy generation and waste treatments.

This is the sectoral Sankey diagram for the food industry in Switzerland. We can see that a large part of the biomass for food production is imported, and that most production wastes are fed back into animal farming again. The red boxes are different waste treatments receiving input from the food industry.

The above is the goods consumption section. Main biogenic goods inputs are from food industry and wood/paper industry. The meat input is rather small comparatively. A big chunk of the mass output (namely waste wood and waste paper) feeds back into the wood/paper industry. 472.000 tons ended up in waste incineration that year, some 329.000 tons in waste water.

The Sankey diagrams in the study are interesting to browse and reveal a lot more interesting facts. The stuctured approach with the breakdown into smaller diagrams is very useful. The authors Baier and Baum from ZHAW at Wädenswil have done a great job in compiling this.

“The results of this study will serve as useful decision aids for strategic planning and assessments concerning the potential, use and management of biogenic resources (…) makes it possible to detect quantitative changes that occurred during a given period of time and to reach conclusions concerning the efficiency of measures taken.

Actually this way of visualizing statistical data with directional (from-to) information attached to it could serve as a role model for other national mass and energy accounts, I think.

Uh – this has become my largest post ever . But I think this was well worth it and the publication merits it. Your comments appreciated.

The authors explain Sankey diagrams as an instrument of Material Flow Analysis (MFA)

“Sankey (directional flow) diagrams are often used to summarize the MFA visually as an entire connected and balanced system. In a Sankey diagram the material flows begin with inputs from nature, then flow into intermediary processes (any infrastructure used for processing, converting, storing, or regulating), and then into the various end use(s). After use, flows may be reconverted by infrastructure systems for reuse or recycling. Ultimately, all flows are directed to a category of output (waste products emitted into air, into water bodies or into landfills; long-term storage; export). The balanced accounting thus tracks every flow from source to sink.”

The Sankey diagram shown in this article is for an resource efficient house, planned or built in New Delhi (India). It shows the water flows through five groups of processes (sources, converters, demands, re-converters, and sinks). The authors call it a “five-partition metabolic profile”, and suggest that it can be done not only for a single house, but “for the built environment at any scale, from parcel to urban region”.

The unit for the quantities given is not indicated, but I presume the water flows are in litres.

When reproducing the Sankey diagram I tried to make it a little more clearer by changing the order of the (invisible) nodes, thus avoiding crossing flows.

In section B-7 of the handbook materials accounting and mass balances are presented as one technique. The text states that

materials accounting and materials mass balances can be presented in a tabular or diagrammatic format. A Sankey diagram provides one useful method for representing a picture of material flows and balances.

and a sample diagram is shown.

Although not all quantities of the individual flows are shown, and there is no reference to the unit used, I think this is a fine example of using Sankey diagrams. The mass imbalance at the first process “Presse” (at the very left) is clearly visible. From the neighboring downstream processes you can see that at least 2105 units (to “Trémie”) and 738 units (to “Évaporation”) leave the process, that has inputs of only 2616 units. The diagram was made with S.Draw.

When I copied the values of the Sankey diagram and re-designed it (see pic 1 below), it quickly became obvious that the inputs (2130 Mio. tons) don’t match the Outputs (2386 Mio. tons). After some research I finally detected the reason for the mismatch in a footnote to the diagram in a press release by the ministry. It said that, “due to intake of moisture, etc., total output shall be larger than total material input.” This footnote might have been dropped unintentionally when using the diagram in other publications. I wouldn’t really call this “lying” (as the title of the post implies), but maybe negligence. I wonder if anyboy doubted the numbers when looking at the diagram?

In the second diagram below I adjusted this difference of 256 Mio. tons on the input side.

Another rather surprising thing in this Sankey diagram is the fact that the domestic food consumption within Japan (127 Mio. tons/year in 2000) was almost as high as the total quantity of material being exported (132 Mio. tons). Taking into account, for example, the number of cars being exported from Japan, and their weight, this sounds a little unlikely. However, I think that many of the produced goods might be hidden in the “Net Addition to Stock”.

And for the readers who study Japanese … Sankey diagram : サンキーダイアグラム

The diagram below is from a peer-reviewed paper presented at the 4th LCA conference in Australia (van Beers, van Berkel, Graedel: The Application of Material Flow Analysis for the Evaluation of the Recovery Potential of Secondary Metals in Australia, 2005). It shows the copper flows within the system boundary of Australia, the unit is Gg/year (= 1000 metric tons per year).

This “clustered” Sankey has six different flow widths, grouping together flow quantities within a specific range (e.g. <10, 10 < 30,9, …). Flows larger than 999 Gg/year are not shown any wider. This avoids that very large quantities “spoil” the whole diagram, as smaller flows become less significant in Sankey diagrams to scale.

An alternative way to overcome the problem or very wide flows in a Sankey diagram spoiling the chart would be to define a cut-off quantity. Flows that are large than the cut-off quantity are excluded from the scale, and are shown with a hatch or moirée pattern. The two Sankey diagrams below were made based on the data from the above publication. The first one shows the large “Ore” flow with a cut-off level at 300 Gg/year (an additional note warns the reader that this flow is not to scale”, while the second diagram is fully to scale.

Very thin arrows additionally get explicit arrow heads to be able to identify their flow direction.

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