Uploaded on 2016-08-15 by Jessica Bedford

The three most important stocks and flows that I have noticed about the area that I stay are as follows: food, construction materials and transport. To start off with food. Food is brought in either from local areas or it is imported. South Korea is quite small, land wise, but it has a large amount of people living in the cities. The land that is available for farming does not seem to be enough to sustain the people here. And for this reason there is a lot of produce that is imported. The main things that I have seen are beef and certain fruits and vegetables. Food is an integral part of human need. Raw produce is taken from farms (be it local or imported) and then at a factory it is then processed and packaged to be sold in a supermarket. From this point it is transported to supermarkets and smaller markets. The interesting thing about South Korea is that every second and last sunday of the month, the major supermarkets are not open. The reason for this is to give the smaller, local markets a chance to earn money and get supportef by the community. This to me is important as it shows that there is a need to support the local community and the sustainable approach. From this point people buy the produce and turn it into food at home or they go out to eat at restaurants. The waste products that are left are then sorted, as recycling is a major thing here. This shows that at different stages of the life cycle food is classified as either a stock or a flow. Construction in the area that I am in is a big thing. A couple of years ago Cheong-na did not exist. But there is no more space in Seoul or in Incheon to build, so areas are now being built up in between the two cities. Which will lead onto transportation and also density. But back to construction and construction materials. Iron is one of the biggest imports, but instead of South Korea importing completed steel products for construction, they are now making their own steel products from the iron and other metals they import. South Korea also have their own mines. The raw products are then transported to factories where it is turned into a product that is used to make the steel and iron products used in construction. From this point it is generally transported to a different factory where they produce the steel beams and rod irons, etc that is needed for a building. Transportation is then needed to get the steel and iron products to site. From here the steel and iron products will remain in place until the end of the life cycle of the building. At the end of the life cycle the hope is that when the building is destroyed or changed the steel and iron products will be recycled rather than destroyed. Because this specific area was empty before there was no materials that could be recycled. Because there has been this massive boom in construction in this area, transportation is really important for the people here. The Korean people love to be active at night and are generally very busy and like to go to the popular areas in the city. This area specific is classified as a suburb area, and it is not a very popular area for people to come and visit. However a lot of people who live in the area will leave to go out over weekends and during the week they will leave to go to work. So while a lot of people have cars here there is also a great public transport system. Initially there was only one train station in the area, that had one specific train running through it (a train that connects the center of Seoul with the airport). But as the area has developed so the urban planners have seen the need to connect the area with different places, to make the flow in and out of the area much easier for people. The future of this is extremely important because as the area grows and becomes more popular, there needs to be a strong and developed transportation system, which is constantly able to change for what the people need. Even though I have just briefly touched on each subject, I can see how in fact a lot of these stocks and flows are indeed interconnected. For example transportation and population density are related.