This document discusses frameworks for analyzing the relationships between human activities, economic development, and environmental impacts. It presents three frameworks: 1) A sensory-motor feedback loop from system science that links human activities and their consequences in a closed loop system. 2) A biogeochemical cycling loop from materials balance that looks at the minimum set of linked components needed for a system. 3) A causality loop from social-material science that examines how each system component depends on upstream drivers and the external environment.