Improving data quality in LCA- management of data gap and data consistency

生命周期评估(LCA)方法是一种工具，用来考察一种产品/过程/服务从原材料提取到废物处理和最终产品本身的整体环境影响。鉴于其整体方法，生命周期评价方法的优势在于能够确定环境影响从一个影响类别到另一个影响类别(例如，从酸化到全球变暖)或产品的一个阶段到另一个阶段(例如，从生产阶段到使用阶段)的任何置换。这样的方法应该考虑整个产品生命周期中的所有过程及其子过程。这意味着需要收集和管理大量数据。由于成本高、耗时长，有时根本不可能收集所需的所有具体数据，因此有必要使用生命周期清单数据库。一个直接的后果是使用不太合适的数据，这意味着生命周期评价研究的质量可能会下降。

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is a tool to look at the overall environmental impacts of a product/process/service from the extraction of raw materials to the treatment of wastes and disposal of products themselves at the end. Given its holistic approach, the strength of the LCA methodology lies in the ability to identify any displacement of environmental impacts from both, an impact category to another one (e.g. from acidification to global warming) or a phase of the product to another one (e.g. from the production to the use phase). Such a methodology should consider all the processes and their sub-processes along the whole product's life cycle. This implies a lot of data to collect and manage. As it is costly, time consuming and sometimes simply not possible to collect all the specific data required, it is necessary to use life cycle inventory databases. A direct consequence is the use of less appropriate data, which means a possible loss in quality of the LCA study.