The "islands" section of ISIE is proposing a special session on islands at the upcoming ISIE conference in Leiden, 2 – 5 July 2023. The session is titled “The Metabolism of Islands” (below is the session abstract). If you are conducting island research and would like to present at ISIE, please submit your abstract for consideration by the committe by 8 February 2023. Please mention the name of the special session in your abstract if you’d like to present in that forum. Here is the conference homepage: https://isie2023netherlands.nl/
Thank you!
Simron Singh (Chair, Island Industrial Ecology)
Bart van Hoof (Secretary, Island Industrial Ecology)
The Metabolism of Islands (proposed session abstract)
Islands are sites of compound events and multiple risks. They are highly vulnerable to the impacts of global warming such as sea-level rise, flooding, droughts, and hurricanes. Maladaptive practices such as infrastructure development along the coast, high imports, undiversified exports, poor waste management, and centralized energy systems are additional stressors. At the same time, islands are excellent systems for Industrial Ecology scholarship and offer a rare opportunity for sustainability research and transformation. With relatively well-defined boundaries, naturally and socially, they can be “real-world laboratories”, an approach that is gaining momentum in addressing societal challenges. Understanding the metabolism of islands is important for developing sustainable and resilient island communities, by analyzing the island’s dependence on imports, identifying opportunities for self-sufficiency, and implementing strategies to reduce waste and emissions. In addition, it also helps to understand the impact of external factors such as climate change and globalization on island ecosystems.
The special session invites papers that focus on basic and policy-relevant research on the metabolism of islands to foster a transformation to sustainability. We invite contributions that analyses island resource self-sufficiency, food, and energy security, sustainable water and nutrient management, disaster risk reduction, waste management, resilient infrastructure, and environmental justice. To this end, concepts applied could be (but not limited to) circular economy, socio-metabolic research, socio-metabolic risk and vulnerability, industrial symbiosis, decoupling, life-cycle approaches, citizen science, material recoverability, green infrastructure, and nature-based solutions.
