Dear Sara and ELCD_user,
many thanks for your posts; in short, the ELCD database is not correct. I will try to explain why.
For a test, I created a new database in openLCA...
- 2013-07-04 19_45_32-New Database.png (12.79 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
...imported the ELCDIII database...
- 2013-07-04 19_46_16-EUROPA-Site on LCA Tools, Services and Data - LCI dataset area.png (23.63 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
- 2013-07-04 19_46_34-Opening ELCDIII.zip.png (13.14 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
...imported the zip archive into openLCA...
- 2013-07-04 19_54_55-Import.png (18.65 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
- 2013-07-04 19_55_04-Import ILCD.png (32.2 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
- 2013-07-04 19_56_30-Import ILCD.png (14.1 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
...and the import throws errors:
- 2013-07-04 19_57_08-.png (6.42 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
.
Flow properties for radioactive waste (different types) cannot be found.
Checking one of the original process data sets where one of these flows occurs (for example, highly radioactive waste as output, which is a product flow in the ELCD database) ...
- 2013-07-04 20_13_46-Process data set_ Polyacrylonitrile fibres (PAN); from acrylonitrile and methacr.png (9.42 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
...and checking also the flow (we cannot use a browser for this since the links are broken, therefore I use a simple editor) ...
- 2013-07-04 21_20_15-C__Users_ac_Downloads_ELCDIII_ILCD_flows_26fd4ed1-a97f-4be3-a9ea-ca9273b48101.xm.png (54.09 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
...we see that there are flow properties such as "UBP ecological scarcity" values and "EDIP 1997" values, i.e. impact category results, as a constant property of flows.
These are common in the GaBi modeling environment, which is also indicated by the administrative section of the flow data set:
- 2013-07-04 21_25_16-C__Users_ac_Downloads_ELCDIII_ILCD_flows_26fd4ed1-a97f-4be3-a9ea-ca9273b48101.xm.png (25.27 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
This is not incorrect of course. When we open the flow property data set of 'UBP ecological scarcity', we see:
- 2013-07-04 21_38_11-C__Users_ac_Downloads_ELCDIII_ILCD_flowproperties_d17c7ed3-8e80-4ba1-9b58-0de5ff.png (45.05 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
And finally, if we follow the unit group referenced in this file, 'Unit of Ecological scarcity - Environmental impact points', we detect that this is missing:
- 2013-07-04 21_41_09-C__Users_ac_Downloads_ELCDIII_ILCD_flowproperties_d17c7ed3-8e80-4ba1-9b58-0de5ff.png (13.06 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
- 2013-07-04 21_43_25-unitgroups.png (42.32 KiB) Viewed 14795 times
Therefore, due to at least one missing unit group, the import fails.
We have forwarded this as a feedback to JRC, but we have also created a corrected version of the ELCDIII database that can be downloaded for free at the openLCA nexus
https://nexus.openlca.org. This database can be imported into openLCA.
Comments welcome!
Andreas