Problems with ELCD import

[Sara]

Hi everyone,
I'm new with the forum and with openLCA that I am now trying to learn.
My problem is:
I've just imported ELCD database that I dowloaded from this page http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasetArea.vm
During the import, openLCA was showing a message about problems with units and flows properties ("cannot open/import units and flows properties").
But, when it finished the operation, it seems all right: I tried to open some units and flow properties editors and they all worked.

Can you explain what the problem is? And how can I fix it?
Thank you
Sara

[ELCD_user]

Hi Sara, I had the same question here
http://www.openlca.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21985
So no problems working with the database? I am also wondering what LCIA method to use with the ELCD database. What do you use? Regards
Ludwig
University of Southampton

[aciroth]

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 14742 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 14742 times

2013-07-04 19_46_34-Opening ELCDIII.zip.png (13.14 KiB) Viewed 14742 times

...imported the zip archive into openLCA...

2013-07-04 19_54_55-Import.png (18.65 KiB) Viewed 14742 times

2013-07-04 19_55_04-Import ILCD.png (32.2 KiB) Viewed 14742 times

2013-07-04 19_56_30-Import ILCD.png (14.1 KiB) Viewed 14742 times

...and the import throws errors:

2013-07-04 19_57_08-.png (6.42 KiB) Viewed 14742 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 14742 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 14742 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 14742 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 14742 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 14742 times

2013-07-04 21_43_25-unitgroups.png (42.32 KiB) Viewed 14742 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

[Sara]

Thanks Andreas for your exhaustive answer!
Though, I have to admit, since I began to use openLCA a few weeks ago, I'm not skilled enough to deeply understand what you so precisely explained. I hope the trainings I'm attending next week will help.
Anyway, I've already downloaded ELCD from nexus some days ago. So, I have to say thanks for having fixed this problem!

In order to answer to Ludwig, as I wrote before, I'm still a very beginners with openLCA. Though, I think there is somehing interesting about LCIA characterisation factors in ILCD format at the bottom of this page (maybe you already knew it) http://lct.jrc.ec.europa.eu/assessment/assessment/data.
Andreas, please, what do you think about these methods? Are they correct and usable?

Thanks to all
Sara

[ELCD_user]

Great that Andreas is looking into this. Much appreciated. I checked and also found that the unit group 'UBP, Ecological scarcity method' with UUID ea76b8b2-9712-4d51-96e8-8cc388273ae9.xml is referenced in 'Highly radioactive waste' but does not exist in the ELCDIII.zip database. I then installed the Nexus plugin and tried to import the following Nexus databases:
1) ELCD_complete.nexuspack (14007568 bytes plain text document it says on my machine)
2) NEEDS_complete.nexuspack (16825250 bytes plain text document)
I couldn't import either of the two:

nexus_import.png (36.26 KiB) Viewed 14702 times

I am using Ubuntu 12.04LTS 64-bit. Best wishes and many thanks
Ludwig
University of Southampton

[ELCD_user]

Sara, were you able to import the corrected ELCD nexus database into openLCA? Regards
Ludwig

[aciroth]

Hello everyone,

please use the ELCDIII database from our openlca Nexus (https://nexus.openlca.org/). It is there available for free but we ask you to register. This database does not have the import issues.

2013-07-15 12_02_05-openLCA Nexus_ The source for LCA data sets.png (38.64 KiB) Viewed 14213 times

2013-07-14 19_53_12-Import.png (21.51 KiB) Viewed 14213 times

However, you will need to update the nexus plugin, as follows, to avoid the issue Ludwig was running into:

in openLCA, go to settings/plugin manager

2013-07-15 12_06_17-openLCA framework 1.3.0_rc1.png (9.04 KiB) Viewed 14213 times

If you already have the plugin installed, update it to the newer version:

2013-07-14 19_46_06-.png (12.08 KiB) Viewed 14213 times

If you do not have the plugin installed, install it from the plugin manager.

In both cases, you will need to restart openLCA.

You can then import the ELCDIII database

2013-07-11 21_52_09-Import.png (22.19 KiB) Viewed 14213 times

2013-07-11 21_53_05-Import Nexus Pack.png (7.02 KiB) Viewed 14213 times

2013-07-15 12_11_30-openLCA framework 1.3.0_rc1.png (58.23 KiB) Viewed 14213 times

[ELCD_user]

Many thanks Andreas. Under the latest Nexus plugin version 1.5 importing Nexus databases is fine. There still is a minor error message, my log file is http://www.soton.ac.uk/~lg1e08/Nexus_log.html
Between the two ELCD versions I noticed differences in the unit groups:
1) Original ELCD database: 20 unit groups
2) NEXUS ELCD database: 6 unit groups
Also, when I looked into the mySQL tables, then
1) Original ELCD database: 1089 rows in tbl_flows
2) NEXUS ELCD database: 1070 rows in tbl_flows
So the Nexus version of the ELCD seems to be different from the original?
Many thanks
Ludwig
University of Southampton

comparison_ELCD3_with_Nexus_ELCD3.png (140.31 KiB) Viewed 14201 times

[ELCD_user]

Out of curiosity I have now looked at all mySQL tables with mySQL query select count(*) from tbl_.... and found 9 tables where there are differences between orginal ELCDIII.zip database and the Nexus pack version:

comparison.png (128.37 KiB) Viewed 14152 times

Why is that? Regards
Ludwig

[aciroth]

Hi Ludwig,
excellent observation, it seems the ELCDIII database was updated recently by JRC, and I think it was not mentioned anywhere. We have now updated also our version at the openLCA nexus, https://nexus.openlca.org. I only corrected obvious errors but did not change the content otherwise (you may wonder why a product flow has a certain LCIA impact as a flow property, independent of any goal and scope setting, but this is the ELCD database content).
Thanks again and all the best,
Andreas

2013-07-22 15_02_21-openLCA Nexus_ The source for LCA data sets.png (19.47 KiB) Viewed 13757 times