Phosphorus Flows in the U.S.

Following up to my last post, here is another Sankey diagram for phosphorus flows. This one is by Jason Pearson, TRUTHstudio and can be found in the ‘Visualization’ section of his website. Jason is also the designer of the Economy Maps (see this March 2012 post).

Jason says that “the diagram demonstrates the key point: that only 15% of the phosphorous in the US food supply chain is ingested, with the remainder ending up as waste. The diagram also shows the proportion of phosphorous used or wasted in non-food supply chains”

This one is more colorful than the Dutch one. Flows are in kt (kilotons). It has a left-to-right orientation (the other was vertical) and is very compact with almost no space betweend the bands, almost like in a block-style diagram. As a concession to this dense style, diagonal arrows don’t maintain their width.