What does the "Data quality entry" mean under the "Data quality" on the "General information" in a process window?

Question

I understand that you can use the data quality entries to derive flow uncertainties from the defined Pedigree matrix, but what does it mean on the General information sheet? Can you define a data quality for the whole process from there, so that every flow will use that as a default? And will it automatically apply those to determine flow uncertainties? Or is it some sort of general uncertainty for the whole process, that gets added to the uncertainty of each flow that was defined individually?

I did not find an explanation for this in the openLCA manual.

Answer 1

Hi,

some databases (EF 3.1 db) use the data quality of the whole process. Hence, this field is filled if a process DQ is chosen with the respective entries. There is not numerical uncertainty attributed to it. Still, in openLCA you will see DQ of the results per process but not per flow (if there is no DQ for the flow set). Normally in LCA databases there is either DQ for flows or for the process.

Hope this helps

Comments

So, do I uderstand correctly that as a rule of thumb, either DQ for each flow (provides numerical uncertainty) or DQ for process (no numerical uncertainty) should be used?