Material flow analysis and methods for visualization based on input-output analysis

提出了一种新的物质流分析方法--单位物质投入产出法。UPIOM图可以有效地可视化部门间的物料流，特别是当有很多部门和回路时。UPIOM图可以作为MFA文献中著名的Sankey图的补充。在构建UPIOM和Sankey图时，重要的是减少信息和/或将代表扇区的框放置在适当的位置。开发了执行这些重要步骤的新方法。这些方法是三角投入产出表，结构路径分析和路径为基础的矩阵分解分析（PMDA）。这些方法被应用于日本经济中的金属物种和碳的MFA。

A new method for material flow analysis(MFA), termed the unit physical input-output by material(UPIOM), was developed. The UPIOM diagram can effectively visualize inter-sector material flow, in particular, when there are a lot of sectors and loops. The UPIOM diagram can be complementary to the Sankey diagram, which is well-known in the literature of MFA. In constructing the UPIOM and Sankey diagrams, it is vital to reduce information and/or place boxes representing sectors at appropriate positions. New methods for carrying out these vital steps were developed. These methods are triangulation of input-output tables, structural path analysis, and path-based matrix decomposition analysis(PMDA). These methods were applied to MFA of metal species and carbon in Japanese economy.