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Welcome to the Activity Browser wiki!

This page aims to explain how to get started using the Activity Browser to import and organize your data, construct and run simple LCA calculations, make changes to datasets and create simple parameterized systems.

The Activity Browser (AB) is an open source LCA software that builds on top of the Brightway LCA framework. Users that are unfamiliar with Brightway2 are invited to also look at the documentation of the framework, as this will explain a number of the components and terms used by AB.

Please consider also watching our short AB Youtube tutorials

Contents

• Importing data
• Creating a calculation setup
• Editing processes
• Creating parameters

Importing data

When starting in a new project the first thing to import is the 'default data', this data consists of the biosphere3 database which contains a number of standardized biosphere flows and a large amount of pre-made Impact Categories (Viewable in the 'Impact Categories' tab on the left). The button Add default data (biosphere flows and impact categories) will add these to the project.

After this is done it becomes possible to create and import databases through the New and Import buttons next to the 'Databases:' header.

With 'New' you can create a completely empty database with any given name and enter your own data as desired.

Clicking 'Import' will open a new window that will allow you to select how you want to import data into brightway (and by extension, the Activity Browser). There are three main options: 'Ecoinvent', 'Forwast' and 'Local', see below for an in-depth explanation of these options.

1. Ecoinvent, a well-known and expansive life cycle inventory database.
   • Download by login: This option will ask for a username and password and will use these to attempt to login to the ecoinvent website. If this succeeds you will be able to download the versions and kinds that are available to the licence the username and password has.
   • Local 7z-archive: This option expects that you have downloaded a version of ecoinvent from their website before and will attempt to extract the selected archive and import the data from there.
   • Local directory: This option will directly read ecospold2 format type files from the given directory and will attempt to import the data.
     • Do note that this option will actually work with any other kind of dataset, as long as it is using the ecospold2 format.
2. Forwast, a publicly available dataset focussing on material stocks and waste amounts for the EU. Selecting this option will download the FORWAST dataset and import it into the project.
3. Local brightway file (BW2Package). This option allows for the import of databases previously exported from brightway, allowing for a straightforward way of sharing datasets between users.
   • There are some validation steps when attempting to import data this way and in the future these will be extended in an attempt to make this method of database importing a lot more flexible to use.

Creating a calculation setup

A calculation setup needs to be created in order to do LCA calculations.

You can find the LCA Setup tab on the right side of the window, opening it will show a number of buttons and a drop-down menu at the top. A new calculation setup can be created by clicking the New button.

After creating a new calculation setup you can drag-and-drop activities (technosphere processes) from their database list (Accessed by double-clicking on any database name) into the 'Reference Flows' table. Impact categories can be dragged-and-dropped from their list under the 'Impact Categories' tab into the 'Impact categories' table for the setup.

A minimum LCA setup consists of 1 reference flow and 1 impact category.

Editing processes

Sometimes you want to quickly change a process to see what kind of influence some exchange has on the impact assessment of that functional unit, or to see if this change has some effect on the impact assessments of other downstream processes.

Editing an activity can be done only when the database it belongs to is not in read-only mode, this mode is individually toggleable by clicking on the check-mark for the database in the databases table on the left side. Take note however: making an edit to any activity in a database will mark that database as 'dirty', but it won't keep track of the changes themselves. Keep this in mind when working with datasets such as ecoinvent.

Editing an activity inside the activity browser is possible when viewing its details. Activity details can be seen by double-clicking on any technosphere activity (i.e. process) in a database, this will open the Activity Details tab on the right side of the window. After opening the details view of an activity, actually editing it requires checking the Edit Activity check-box inside the tab.

It is possible to change a number of things about an activity: the location an activity occurs in, the unit of measurement for the product it produces, even the product name can be altered.

Note that for the technosphere inputs and biosphere flows only the amount and formula fields can be edited, this is because only these fields have an actual effect on the assessment calculation.

Creating parameters

Parameters are special objects in Brightway that allow users to create incredibly complex systems of interlocking parts.

What parameters actually do is store a value and allow recalculation of that value through a formula. While there are technically three layers of parameters (Project, Database and Activity), the AB encourages users to only use two (Project and Activity).

Note that each parameter has a name which is unique within their 'group'. So project parameters have unique names within the project and activity parameters have names unique within their 'group'. The Activity Browser will strongly enforce this uniqueness and won't allow name changes if a conflict exists.

The reason for this uniqueness is that a parameter name can be used in formulas to insert the value of that parameter at that specific place in the formula.

Project parameters

A new project parameter can be created by clicking the New button next to the 'Project' label. A default name is assigned to this parameter which can later be altered (renaming) by right-clicking on the parameter and selecting the Rename parameter option from the drop-down menu that opens.

Both the amount and formula fields can be edited by double-clicking in them, though keep in mind that the formula field has precedence when determining the amount of the parameter.

Finally, a (project) parameter can be deleted by right-clicking on the parameter and selecting the Delete parameter option from the drop-down menu. Do note however that a parameter can only be deleted if it is not being used in any other formula field, if the Activity Browser finds that this is the case, the Delete option will be grayed out.

Activity Parameters

Where project parameters can be used by any formula anywhere in the project, activity parameters are a lot more narrow in scope. These parameters are made to target the specific exchanges that exist within the activity that is parameterized.

There are some rules for activity parameters:

• Multiple parameters can be created for one activity.

• Exchanges for activity B cannot use parameters created for activity A.

• Activity parameters must have a unique name within the 'group' of the related activity. Two parameters on different activities can have the same name.

• If a project parameter and an activity parameter share a name, the activity parameter will be preferred if that name is used in a formula for one of the exchanges.

In the Activity Browser activity parameters can be created in two ways:

1. The first way is through dragging-and-dropping activities from the activities table on the left side into the activity parameters table on the right side. This allows for an easy way of parameterizing multiple activities at once. However, the user still has to go into each activity (by way of the Activity Detail tab) and parameterize the relevant exchanges.

2. The second way is through directly parameterizing exchanges within the Activity Detail tab (by editing the formula field). As soon as an exchange formula is stored, the Activity Browser will generate a new activity parameter for the related activity.

Activity parameters can be Renamed and Deleted through right-clicking the parameter, much the same as project parameters. Additionally, the Activity Detail tab can be opened for the parameterized activity by way of the Open activities option.