The economic conditions for urban infrastructure mining: Using GIS to prospect hibernating copper stocks

Björn Wallsten, Dick Magnusson, Simon Andersson and Joakim Krook

Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 2015, vol. 103, issue C, 85-97

Abstract: In this article, we suggest a methodology that combines geographic information systems (GIS) and material flow analysis (MFA) into a secondary reserve-prospecting tool. The approach is two-phased and couples spatially informed size estimates of urban metal stocks (phase 1) to the equally spatially contingent efforts required to extract them (phase 2). Too often, even the most advanced MFA assessments stop at the first of these two phases, meaning that essential information needed to facilitate resource recovery, i.e., urban mining, is missing from their results. To take MFA one step further, our approach is characterized by a high resolution that connects the analysis of the stock to the social practices that arrange material flows in the city, thereby enabling an assessment of the economic conditions for secondary resource recovery.

Keywords: Urban mining; Hibernating stocks; Infrastructure; Material flow analysis; GIS; Economic assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:recore:v:103:y:2015:i:c:p:85-97

DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2015.07.025

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