I am currently starting my MSc thesis about Industrial Symbiosis (IS). The goal of the research is to understand some of the current needs of the field and what solutions might fulfil them. I am trying to combine part of the research with some personal interests - agriculture and rural areas. In order to that I have the following research questions that might help to understand the feasibility of such a project:

- Can IS play an important role in the development of rural areas? How should this be measured? Creation of jobs, population density, regional GDP?

- How integrated is the agriculture sector with industrial clusters? Can IS contribute for this integration? How much benefit would this bring to make agriculture and IS systems more productive and sustainable?

-What current softwares and data models are being used to optimize and integrate industrial systems into IS? Can any of them be applied to the previous questions?