Another Emergy diagram from Taiwan

Source: Shu-Li Huang, Chun-Lin Lee, Chia-Wen Chen, 2006. Socioeconomic metabolism in Taiwan: Emergy synthesis versus material flow analysis.

As discussed in an earlier post, Emergy is another species of flow analysis.  This diagram, from the same author who was referenced in the previous Emergy post, is in my opinion rather difficult to decipher.  The curvaceous nature of the flow lines leads to a breaking apart of the figure-ground relationship, wherein the viewer looks for meaning in shapes that are not processes.