Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) applied to La Palma (Canary Islands): A cross-island comparison of metabolic patterns and governance implications

Abstract

Islands are bounded yet metabolically open socio-ecological systems whose viability is increasingly stressed by tourism pressure, climate variability, and high external dependence for energy and food. This paper applies the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) framework to characterise resource flows in La Palma (Canary Islands), analysing the integration of energy, water, land, and economic dimensions across twelve economic sectors. Using official statistical data for the period 2020–2023, we quantify metabolic patterns for La Palma and compare them with indicators tabulated from previously published MuSIASEM or MuSIASEM-related studies of three contrasting island systems: tourism-intensive Lanzarote, Biosphere Reserve Menorca, and conservation-oriented Isabela in the Galápagos. The comparison uses indicators reported in those published studies rather than a fully harmonised recalculation.

Results reveal dramatic sectoral concentration patterns. Land use is dominated by agriculture (151.69 km², 85.1% of utilised land and 21.4% of total island area), whilst commerce and hospitality together absorb about 31% of paid-work time. Energy consumption is led by residential use (44.7%) and commerce (35.7%), with the compact commerce-hospitality service front concentrating the highest energy densities. Water metabolism shows extreme agricultural concentration (86.3% of total, 68 million m³/year), which concentrates the island's exposure to hydrological variability in a single sector. Economic analysis reveals education and health generating 35.1% of reconciled gross value added, followed by the combined commerce-transport-hospitality branch (22.4%), which official statistics publish as a single aggregate and which we therefore do not disaggregate. Metabolic-rate analysis identifies commerce and ICT services as the most energy-intensive sectors on a per-hour-of-human-activity basis (19.1 and 20.4 MJ·h⁻¹ respectively; equivalently 5.30 and 5.67 kWh·h⁻¹), with metabolic rates computed against annual sectoral paid-work hours.

La Palma's own metabolic accounting is built from primary statistical sources, whereas the indicators for Lanzarote, Menorca and Isabela are tabulated from published studies rather than recomputed; the comparison is therefore explicitly non-harmonised and supports illustrative associations, not causal inference. Findings illustrate, rather than demonstrate in general terms, the usefulness of MuSIASEM for integrated sustainability assessment in geographically bounded but metabolically open island systems.