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Industrial park development has become a critical strategy to promote economic development in many countries since 1980s. Particularly, China is one key country to adopt such a method on enhancing its industrialization. However, rapid industrial park development has resulted in many issues, including resource depletion, environmental emissions and pressure on responding climate change. Industrial symbiosis has been proved that it has positive impacts on promoting resource utilization efficiency. Therefore, effective performance evaluation can help recognize the key barriers on industrial symbiosis of industrial parks so that more appropriate policies can be raised by considering the local realities. Emergy synthesis is one feasible method on addressing the contribution of local ecosystem to industrial park development due to its innovative perspectives and mature methodology, while impact, population, affluence, technology (IPAT) formula and index decomposition analysis (IDA) are suitable for identifying and quantitatively calculating the key impacts of various factors. This paper integrated emergy synthesis, IPAT formula and IDA methods together to investigate the impact factors of industrial symbiosis in an industrial park. A case study approach at Dalian Economic Development Area (DEDA) was carried out so that such an effort can be tested. The results show that waste reutilization by industrial symbiosis in DEDA increased by 3.0E+20 seJ from 2006 to 2010. Technological pressure for waste utilization by industrial symbiosis and energy structure of an industrial park had made negative effects on the waste reutilization from 2006 to 2010 in DEDA, while the efficiency of non-renewable energy consumption and emergy scale of an industrial park played positive effects on the waste reutilization. Among the four impact factors, technological pressure for waste utilization and the efficiency of non-renewable energy consumption took more significant impacts on the industrial symbiosis of DEDA than the other two factors, which contributed −1.92E+21 seJ and 2.18E+21 seJ for the waste reutilization by industrial symbiosis respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefit evaluation of industrial symbiosis in industrial parks plays an important part in park management. This study aims to propose a comprehensive assessment method for industrial symbiosis benefits by combining resource productivity and considering the impact of emissions in emergy analysis. Besides, classify industrial symbiosis according to the exchange of materials, water, and energy to conduct an in-depth analysis of diverse symbiosis. The case study of an eco-industrial park in China shows that industrial symbiosis has a positive effect in many aspects, including increasing the productivity of direct input materials, water, and energy by 0.33, 36.50, and 0.38 times respectively, reducing the emission impact by 30.91%, saving economic investment equal to 30.18% of gross domestic product, reducing the environmental load rate by 23.88% and increasing the sustainable development index by 32.74%. Suggestions on building a symbiosis network are put forward by comparing the contributions of symbiosis types. This study provides park managers with a symbiosis classification and a benefit evaluation tool to build symbiosis networks and make policies for sustainable industrial development. • Industrial symbiosis is divided according to the exchange of materials, water and energy. • Resource productivity is added to identify the contribution of symbiosis. • Emissions' impact is considered to improve emergy indicators. • An approach to evaluate the performance of industrial symbiosis is proposed. • Suggestions for building a symbiosis network are put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]