Improvements to Biosphere use

[marc-vdm]

Feature request

Current situation:

Managing biosphere versions in AB projects is currently not ideal. Creating a new project installs the most recent version of the biosphere, potentially losing compatibility with older versions. (e.g. #1137).

Biosphere import when project is started

• When starting a project, Biosphere data needs to be imported before doing anything else
• AB then installs the most recent version of the biosphere available

activity-browser/activity_browser/ui/widgets/dialog.py

Lines 529 to 532 in fe69950

	if "biosphere3" not in bw.databases:
	self.update.emit(0, "Creating default biosphere for {}".format(project))
	bw.create_default_biosphere3()
	project_settings.add_db("biosphere3")

Biosphere importer in Brightway

• When AB calls bw.create_default_biosphere3() eventually Ecospold2BiosphereImporter(name="biosphere3", version="3.9") is called

Updating Biosphere

• When updating biosphere, AB looks for patches in bw2io.data
• And applies all patches

activity-browser/activity_browser/ui/widgets/biosphere_update.py

Line 44 in fe69950

PATCHES = [patch for patch in dir(data) if patch.startswith('add_ecoinvent') and patch.endswith('biosphere_flows')]

activity-browser/activity_browser/ui/widgets/biosphere_update.py

Lines 52 to 55 in fe69950

	for i, patch in enumerate(self.PATCHES):
	self.progress.emit(i)
	update_bio = getattr(data, patch)
	update_bio()

Proposal

What I propose is the following (explained more extensively in sections below):

• We let user specify the version of ecoinvent they want their biosphere to be compatible with when importing default data
• We let user specify which version of ecoinvent to update to when updating biosphere data
• We create an online (hosted on this github repo) file that contains all ecoinvent versions AB is compatible with (currently 3.4-3.9.1), we then use this file for:
  • Showing which versions of ecoinvent can be imported (see also Proper sorting of available ecoinvent versions #1141)
  • Showing which ecoinvent-compatible version of biosphere to install on project creation
  • Showing which ecoinvent-compatible version of biosphere to update to

Downloading a specific version of biosphere

Should provide popup that allows user to choose ecoinvent-compatible version, sorted from highest to lowest
Should provide information that biosphere databases are not always backwards compatible (e.g. ei 3.8 does not work on biosphere for ei 3.9) and that versions cannot be downgraded

TODO

• Add dialog option to choose version (default to highest)
• Replace bw.create_default_biosphere3() with an AB version that can call Ecospold2BiosphereImporter(name="biosphere3", version="3.9") directly and call on chosen version
• Read available version from variable somewhere (see Host file online section below)

Updating to specific version

Should provide popup that allows user to choose ecoinvent-compatible version, sorted from highest to lowest
Should provide information that biosphere databases are not always backwards compatible (e.g. ei 3.8 does not work on biosphere for ei 3.9) and that versions cannot be downgraded

TODO

• Add dialog option to choose version (default to highest)
• Only apply patches to max chosen version
• Read available version from variable somewhere (see Host file online section below)

Show limited list of available ecoinvent versions for importing

Should limit the list of ecoinvent versions shown available for import

TODO

• Read available version from variable somewhere (see Host file online section below)

Host file online

Host a file on our github with a list per AB version about what ecoinvent versions are compatible

• Why online? This way users don't need to update AB for the list to be updated, but it would mean we need to keep a list for every version of AB
  • In case a new version of bw2io comes available that is compatible with current version of AB, we don't need users to update AB, we just update the compatibility list online and it should work
  • In case a new patch version of ecoinvent becomes available (e.g. 3.9.1, we can also just update the list, not requiring users to update AB
  • We can smartly write the implementation so we only need to store new version list when something changes
    • if user has AB 2.11 and the online list has 2.12 and 2.10 available, we choose the first version where AB is higher than list version (in this case 2.10)
  • file could look something like this:
    • 2.10.2: [3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.7.1, 3.8, 3.9, 3.9.1, 3.10]
    • 2.10: [3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.7.1, 3.8, 3.9, 3.9.1]

TODO

• Write file like suggested above
• Read file from internet
• Local fallback in case of no connection

[github-actions]

This issue has been implemented in the new release of Activity Browser 🚀 (version 2.9.3), you can get the new version by updating Activity Browser.

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