英文摘要 |
Monetary units are frequently used as measurement for planning and public decision makings. The 'willingness-to-pay' based approach has been practiced by the neoclassical-oriented environmental economists to shadow price the value of natural environment. However, it has also been criticized by ecologists as a subjective approach and for lack of the biophysical value basis. The primary aim of this research is to incorporate the concept of emergy (spelled with an M) synthesis, developed by H. T. Odum, and use the Taipei metropolitan region as a case example to study: (1) the relationships between metropolis economic system and natural system; and (2) the ecological hierarchy between metropolis and city. The results indicate that from the ecological economic system point of view, Taipei metropolitan region has reached highly developed state due to its significant dependence on purchased emergy-and high emergy use per area. However, the low per capita emergy use reveals its Jess-than-ideal living standard. In addition, the stress on natural environment due to economic activity can also be shown by emergy indices such as emergy investment ratio, proportion of waste emergy, etc. Emergy can be used as measurement for environmental valuation for public policy rather than as substitute for monetary exchange in the market. |