Chapter prepared for inclusion in Suh, S. (Ed.) (2005): “Handbook of Input-Output Economics in Industrial Ecology” Modelling global resource use: material flows, land use and input-output models Stefan Giljum a * , Friedrich Hinterberger a , Christian Lutz b , Bernd Meyer b a Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI), Garnisongasse 7/27, 1090 Vienna, Austria b Institute for Economic Structures Research (GWS), Weissenburger Straße 4, 49076 Osnabrück, Germany * corresponding author: T +43 1 9690728 19, F +43 1 9690728 17 E stefan.giljum@seri.at 1 Introduction Monitoring the transition of modern societies towards a path of sustainable development requires comprehensive and consistent information on the relations between socio-economic activities and resulting environmental consequences. In the past 15 years, several approaches have been developed providing this information in biophysical terms (see, for example, Daniels and Moore, 2002 for an overview). These methods of physical accounting are applied to quantify “societal metabolism” (Fischer-Kowalski, 1998) and to measure the use of “envi- ronmental space” (Opschoor, 1995) by human activities. Within the system of physical ac- counts on the national level (for a classification see the “Integrated System of Environmental and Economic Accounts” developed by the United Nations, 2003), material flow accounting and analysis (MFA) and land use accounting are regarded as appropriate tools to provide a comprehensive picture of environmental pressures induced by and inter-linked with the pro- duction and consumption of a country. In the European Union (EU), a large number of policy documents address high levels of resource use and production of huge amounts of waste and emissions as one major obstacle for the realisation of an environmentally sustainable development in industrialised countries. The sustainable management of natural resources, in order to keep anthropogenic environ- mental pressures within the limits of Earth’s carrying capacity, is highlighted as one central 1