Design document for MethodFamily

[cmutel]

The current LCIA implementation assumes that only one impact category will be calculated, but it is convenient to calculate all indicators for a family of impact categories inside an LCIA method. This should take place inside the MultiLCA class in bw2calc.

Before starting a software implementation, we need a design document (and eventually an enhancement proposal) on exactly what we would like and how we imagine it could work. There has been some preliminary discussion here:

• bw2calc: Interface design for multiple LCIA methods
• bw2data: Design support for LCIA method families and complete methods

A critical consideration is that the bw2calc MultiLCA class cannot rely on bw2data being available; therefore, it needs a simple and well defined configuration language which tells the MultiLCA class how to load data from bw_processing datapackages to construct multiple characterization matrices. A utility function in bw2data should produce the necessary configuration data.

This project is part of the Brightway strategic plan.

[cmutel]

Issue closed during cleanup for Brightcon 2023