YSTAFDB, a unified database of material stocks and flows for sustainability science

Abstract

We present the Yale Stocks and Flows Database (YSTAFDB), which comprises most of the material stocks and flows (STAF) data generated at the Center for Industrial Ecology at Yale University since the early 2000s. These data describe material cycles, criticality, and recycling in terms of 62 elements and various engineering materials, e.g., steel, on spatial scales and timeframes ranging from cities to global and the 1800s to ca. 2013. YSTAFDB integrates this diverse collection of STAF data, previously scattered across various non-uniformly formatted electronic files, into a single data structure and file format. Here, we discuss this data structure as well as the usage and formatting of data records in YSTAFDB. YSTAFDB contains 100,000+ data records that are all situated in their systems contexts, with additional metadata included as available. YSTAFDB offers a comprehensive basis upon which STAF data can be accumulated, integrated, and exchanged, and thereby improves their accessibility. Therefore, YSTAFDB facilitates deeper understanding of sustainable materials use and management, which are key goals of contemporary sustainability science.

Switching From Petroleum- to Bio-Based Plastics: Visualization Tools to Screen Sustainable Material Alternatives During the Design Process

“…Thomas E. Graedel, pioneer researcher in industrial ecology, recently argued for better visualization tools for materials-based decision making, especially to ease the interpretation of numerous and complex data in sustainability science. His research team is experimenting with different visual concepts on a very substantial materials database [43,44], intending to facilitate a deeper understanding of sustainable materials use and management. Concretely, clear and integrated visualization frameworks are essential to advance the implementation and use of sustainability analyses during the design and development of products.…”

Switching From Petroleum- to Bio-Based Plastics: Visualization Tools to Screen Sustainable Material Alternatives During the Design Process

“…Thomas E. Graedel, pioneer researcher in industrial ecology, recently argued for better visualization tools for materials-based decision making, especially to ease the interpretation of numerous and complex data in sustainability science. His research team is experimenting with different visual concepts on a very substantial materials database [43,44], intending to facilitate a deeper understanding of sustainable materials use and management. Concretely, clear and integrated visualization frameworks are essential to advance the implementation and use of sustainability analyses during the design and development of products.…”

A core ontology for modeling life cycle sustainability assessment on the Semantic Web

“…Predicates introduced in the BONSAI ontology aligned to the Semantic Web Here "bont:," "time:" and "schema:" refer to the suggested prefixes for the namespaces for BONSAI ontology IRI (Myers et al, 2019b). This contains 100,000+ data records on anthropogenic cycles of 62 elements as well as specific engineering materials such as stainless steel.…”

“…This contains 100,000+ data records on anthropogenic cycles of 62 elements as well as specific engineering materials such as stainless steel. This dataset is published as a supplementary material on zenodo.org alongside the main publication (Myers et al, 2019a(Myers et al, , 2019b.…”