India's economic growth in the last decade has raised several concerns in terms of its present and future resource demands for materials and energy. While per capita resource consumption is still extremely modest but on the rise, its sheer population qualifies India as a fast growing giant with material and energy throughput that is growing rapidly . If such national and local trends continue, the challenges for regional, national as well as global sustainability are immense in terms of future resource availability, social conflicts, pressure on land and ecosystems and atmospheric emissions. Using the concepts of social metabolism and material flow analysis, this paper presents an original study quantifying resource use trajectories for India from 1961 up to 2008. We argue for India's need to grow in order to be able to provide a reasonable material standard of living for its vast population. To this end, the challenge is in avoiding the precarious path so far followed by industrialised countries in Europe and Asia, but to opt for a regime shift towards sustainability in terms of resource use by building on a host of promising examples and taking opportunities of existing niches to make India a trendsetter.

中文翻译：

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印度的生物物理经济，1961-2008。国家和全球背景下的可持续性

印度过去十年的经济增长引起了人们对其当前和未来对材料和能源的资源需求的担忧。虽然人均资源消耗量仍然非常小但正在上升，但其庞大的人口使印度成为一个快速增长的巨人，其物质和能源吞吐量正在迅速增长。如果这种国家和地方趋势继续下去，就未来资源可用性、社会冲突、对土地和生态系统的压力以及大气排放而言，区域、国家和全球可持续性将面临巨大挑战。使用社会代谢和物质流分析的概念，本文提出了一项原创研究，量化了印度从 1961 年到 2008 年的资源利用轨迹。为了能够为其庞大的人口提供合理的物质生活水平，它们需要增长。为此，挑战在于避免欧洲和亚洲工业化国家迄今为止所走的不稳定道路，而是通过建立大量有希望的例子并利用现有的机会，选择资源使用方面的可持续性制度转变。使印度成为潮流引领者的利基市场。