FLOWSA: A Python Package Attributing Resource Use, Waste, Emissions, and Other Flows to Industries

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Industrial Ecology
• Data Science

Background:

• Quantifying industrial resource consumption, production, and emissions (flows) is complex due to diverse data sources and aggregation levels.
• Existing datasets rapidly become outdated with new source data releases, posing challenges for accurate environmental accounting.
• Attributing environmental flows to specific industries requires sophisticated methods to reconcile varied data scopes and formats.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the open-source Flow Sector Attribution (FLOWSA) Python package developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).
• To address the challenges in attributing environmental flows to US industrial and final-use sectors.
• To provide a flexible tool for modeling and analyzing environmental flows and their attribution to economic sectors.

Main Methods:

• FLOWSA utilizes Python to model environmental flows (resources, wastes, emissions, losses) drawn from or released to the environment by sectors.
• It imports and standardizes data from various providers, then allocates primary data to industries using secondary data and file mapping.
• The package allows users to adjust methodological, spatial, and temporal parameters to assess the impact of attribution choices.

Main Results:

• FLOWSA provides standardized data outputs suitable for integration into USEPA's US Environmentally Extended Input-Output (USEEIO) models.
• Demonstrated capabilities include building models and presenting results for US industry water, land, and employment flows.
• The open-source nature facilitates accessibility and use for environmental flow quantification and attribution.

Conclusions:

• FLOWSA offers a robust, adaptable solution for the complex task of attributing environmental flows to industrial sectors.
• The package enhances the accuracy and timeliness of environmental data used in economic and life cycle assessments.
• FLOWSA is available on GitHub, with associated data accessible via the USEPA's Data Commons, promoting transparency and further research.