The Extension of Statistical Entropy Analysis to Chemical Compounds

Statistical entropy analysis (SEA) quantifies the dilution and concentration of conservative substances (e.g., heavy metals) in a system. In this paper, the SEA concept is extended (eSEA) to make it applicable to systems in which the chemical speciation is of particular importance. The eSEA is applied to a simplified region used for crop farming. The extent to which the region concentrates or dilutes nitrogen compounds is expressed as the change in statistical entropy (H). A detailed derivation for the calculation of H is provided. The results are discussed for four variations of the crop farming system, showing that the efficiency of crop farming can be expressed by eSEA.