Industrial ecology (IE) is a rapidly growing scienti?c discipline that
is concerned with the sustainability of industrial systems under
explicit consideration of its int- dependence with natural systems. In
recent years, there has been an ever-increasing awareness about the
applicability of Input-Output Analysis (IOA) to IE, in particular to LCA
(life cycle assessment) and MFA (material ?ow analysis). This is
witnessed in the growing number of papers at ISIE (International Society
for Industrial Ec- ogy) conferences, which use IOA, and also by the
installment of subject editors on IOA in the International Journal of
Life Cycle Assessment. It can be said that IE has become a major ?eld of
application for IOA. The broadening of users of IOA from various
backgrounds implies a need for a self-contained textbook on IOA that can
meet the needs of students and practitioners without compromising on
basic c- cepts and the latest developments. This book was written with
the aim of ?lling this need, and is primarily addressed to students and
practitioners of IE. As the title suggests, the core contents of the
book have grown out of our research in IOA of waste management issues
over the last decade. We have been fascinated by the versatile nature of
IOA with regard to various technical issues of waste m- agement in
particular, and to IE in general. For us (both economists by training),
IOA has turned out to be extremely useful in establishing productive
communi- tion with scientists and engineers interested in IE.
