Introduction

This beginning chapter aims to introduce the background, goal, and main contents of this book. First, it will introduce the materials and their flows through the socioeconomic system. The system composes all the material flows within its whole life cycle including mineral exploitation and transport, raw material production and processing, construction, operation and maintenance, and dismantling and waste disposal. To analyze the material flows in the socioeconomic system, the chapter then proposes the material flow analysis, a particular method widely used to analyze the material flows in the system. Considering the ‘nexus’ relationship among these materials and its great effect on the material flows and the related environmental impacts of the system, it highlights the material flows with nexus in the related studies. Moreover, the chapter points out that the book will explore the material flows with nexus in regional socioeconomic systems due to their regional differences. Lastly, the chapter gives a main introduction of each chapter discussed as follows.