Urban resource use and environmental performance indicators. An application of decomposition analysis

Finally, a decomposition analysis was performed to identify the main causes and drivers associated with the changes in the city metabolism. Decomposition results show that the increased fraction of imports compared to local sources, of non-renewable resources compared to renewables, as well as of population and per capita income not accompanied by sufficient increase of energy and material efficiency are the major drivers of such unsustainability pattern and call for policies that focus on optimization of production and consumption patterns in times of unavoidable shrinking of resource basis.