why is there an elemental flow called "Transformation, from forest, intensive" and and another elemental flow called "Transformation, to forest, intensive" in most agricultural datasets? The two always have the same quantity and cancel each other out in any impact assessment.
Dear Tim,
Elementary exchanges starting with “Transformation,” show the changes in land “type”/”quality” that are introduced by an activity and they show how large of an area is affected. The area of all “Transformation, from” and “Transformation, to” exchanges in one dataset are supposed to cancel each other out, however there are cases where land gets transformed from one “type” of “Transformation,” to another, which showcases a degradation of the land through an activity. Activities that contain only two elementary exchanges “Transformation, from forest, intensive" and "Transformation, to forest, intensive" with the same amount show land being transformed from forest and back to forest by the activity.
I hope this answers your question, otherwise please come back to us or send an email to us on support@ecoinvent.org.
Best regards,
Johannes Müller, Junior Data Analyst, ecoinvent assiciation