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flow-mapping

Analyzes how well a characterization method maps to the flows in a database. Essential for understanding the accuracy of your impact assessment results.

Historically this command was named mapping; it is now flow-mapping to disambiguate from compartment-mapping and other mapping resources.

Usage

Section titled “Usage”
Terminal window
volca --config volca.toml --db <DB> flow-mapping <METHOD_UUID> [OPTIONS]

Command reference

Section titled “Command reference”
{flowMappingHelp}

Examples

Section titled “Examples”
Terminal window
# Summary stats
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent flow-mapping <METHOD_UUID>


# Which CFs are matched, and by what strategy
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent flow-mapping <METHOD_UUID> --matched


# Which CFs have no match in the database
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent flow-mapping <METHOD_UUID> --unmatched


# Which database flows are uncharacterized
volca --config volca.toml --db ecoinvent flow-mapping <METHOD_UUID> --uncharacterized

Interpreting results

Section titled “Interpreting results”

A good mapping rate for common method/database combinations (e.g. EF3.1 + ecoinvent) is typically 70–90%. Lower rates indicate that:

  • The method uses different flow naming conventions from the database
  • You may need to load flow synonym sets
  • Some impact categories may have poor coverage

See Flow Mapping guide for detailed explanation.