International Industrial Ecology Day 2021

Wide-scale spatial assessment of material stocks is essential for understanding the dynamics of the built environment. The current research makes use of globally available remotely sensed data and their derived products to predict the distribution of current material stocks within Europe. Nighttime lights data are used to delineate distinct built-up areas, offering a more reliable representation of the extent of such areas than existing administrative or political boundaries. The nighttime lights are then used as a proxy for estimating built-up volume within each distinct area. Coupled with material intensity databases, the predicted built-up volume is used to calculate both residential and non-residential material stocks within Europe in multiple levels of aggregation, from city district to continental.
The results estimate the total material stocks of Europe at 109 billion tons, with an average of 37 thousand tons/km2. Comparing our modelled results with past ad-hoc bottom-up studies reveals good agreement, pointing to the model’s ability to offer wide-scale comparability and benchmarking.
The derived spatial dataset enables further analyses, such as comparing material stock patterns between regions and exploring possible relationships with different socio-economic parameters. By using constantly updating datasets, spatio-temporal dynamics of material stocks can be inspected in the future.