LAUSR

Cities utilize and manipulate an immense amount of global carbon flows through their economic and technical activities. Here, we establish the carbon networks of eight global cities by tracking the carbon exchanges between various natural and economic components. The metabolic properties of these carbon networks are compared by combing flow-based and interpretative network metrics. We further assess the relations of these carbon metabolic properties of cities with their socioeconomic attributes that are deemed important in urban development and planning. We find that though there is a large difference in city-level carbon balance and flow pattern, a similarity in inter-component relationships and metabolic characteristics can be found. Cities with lower per capita carbon emissions tend to have healthier metabolic systems with better cooperation amongst various industries, which indicates there may be synergy between urban decarbonization and metabolic system optimization. Combination of indicators from flow balance and network model is a promising scheme for linking carbon inventories to metabolic modelling efforts. With this done, we may be able to fill the knowledge gap in current practices of carbon mitigation priorities as to how various carbon flows in cities can be concertedly managed according to urban economic and demographic changes.