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Hi!

I'm new to OpenLCA (and LCA in general) and would like to ask some beginner questions on the integration of the EcoInvent database into OpenLCA. I'm going to work with the 'cutoff' database from EcoInvent 3.8, but there are three different versions of this database (one not specified, one 'lci', and one 'region'). What is the difference between these three? And which one should I use? Or should I integrate the three into one?

As I understand it, I also need to download the LCIA (=impact analysis) database separately. What is the difference between the LCIA by OpenLCA and the one by EcoInvent? Do I need to integrate that database into the same one where I make my product process?

Thank you for helping me!
in openLCA by (120 points)

1 Answer

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by (125k points)
Hi and welcome, regionalised means we added more regions to flows than ecoinvent (e.g., there may be some unit processes from Spain with water input, and in the original ecoinvent, these water input flows are "global", we changed this to Spain in this database, so that is better characterised in some impact methods. LCI is the system process database version which you normally do not need unless you want to have a very small model. Decide for one option, you do not need to merge all in one (or, shouldn't - LCI and unit processes can make sense, if you want to do this, start from the LCI database since this is much bigger.

The databases contain our LCIA method pack already, but we also provide the ecoinvent version for those interested, this is the original release by ecoinvent (transformed to work in openLCA). Hth, Andreas
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