This review examines how space has been conceptualised in urban-metabolism research and argues for a stronger spatial turn. It challenges aggregate city-level accounts that treat urban areas as homogeneous containers and therefore obscure territorial relations, unequal access and the location of infrastructures.

The study combines bibliometric and qualitative analysis of 448 publications. It identifies five broad themes and twenty research communities spanning territorial-economic, socio-political, socio-ecological, governance-and-planning and modelling perspectives. The review shows that these communities often use spatial concepts differently and proposes an agenda for cross-fertilisation.

The article provides the theoretical foundation for the Spatial Dimension of Urban Metabolism project. It explains why GIS, landscape analysis, public-space research and community vulnerability must be integrated with flow accounting.