From material flow analysis to material flow management Part I: social sciences modeling approaches coupled to MFA

Abstract

This paper presents social sciences modeling approaches (SSMA) that have been coupled to material flow analyses in order to support management of material flows. The presented literature review revealed that the large share of these approaches stem from economics, as these models have similar data and modeling structure than the material flow models. The discussed modeling approaches support a better system understanding and allow for estimating the potential effects of economic policies on material flows. However, it has been shown that these approaches lack important aspects of human decision-making and, thus, the designed economic measures might not always lead to the expected improvements of the material system.