A new update of the openLCA LCIA Method package (v2.4.2) is now available on Nexus.
These are the main highlights of the update:
- Revised water use impact category for the EF 3.1 method, specifically:
- Expanded flow mapping, adding, for example, water emitted in specific freshwater compartments (river, lakes, etc.),
- Changed characterisation factors (CFs) of those flows with locations other than country locations, e.g. Europe, according to AWARE (link; file: AWARE_other_indicators_country_regions-world_20230113-1). E.g., 36.53 for Europe instead of the world average 42.95,
- Fixed the CFs of some of the flows regionalized with locations that still had the global value of 42.95 instead of the regionalized one
- Every impact factor that is regionalized with the location shown in the name is now given twice in the characterisation tables: with and without the new location field in openLCA being used. This makes it compatible with both calculation methods.
- Updated the normalization values of all ReCiPe 2016 methods according to: https://www.rivm.nl/en/documenten/normalization-scores-recipe-2016
Where to obtain the latest openLCA LCIA Method package:
The method package is available on Nexus at this link in .zolca and JSON-LD format.
How to update the LCIA Methods in openLCA:
If you want to update the method package in a database that already contains the previous version, you have different options:
- Delete the current version of the method package (both methods and impact categories folders) and then import the latest one
- Import the latest one and use the option “Update data sets with newer version”. This option will update the existing version of the method package with the newest one. At the end you will see the new folder and the old one, which will be empty and you can safely delete
We recommend to always make a copy or a backup of the database in use before making any changes. Moreover, it’s not possible to have different version of the method package within the same database. In that case, we advise to have two copies of the same database with different versions of the methods imported.
For support requests you can contacts us on ask.openLCA.