Step 4b: Downscale the data from Step 4a with the correct proxies
Where:
- “A. Data collection” sheet > 1. Domestic extraction > columns G and H;
- “A. Data collection” sheet > 2. Imports&Exports > columns H and I;
- “B. Data processing”
How: Reflect on the data that you have gathered so far and determine if you need to downscale (some of) it. Here is explained how downscaling works in general. To better understand how to integrate it into the UCA workflow, follow the following steps:
- Determine if you need to use data from Step 4a. If yes, you need to downscale it.
- To keep an overview of the data for yourself, you can determine in column G (Domestic extraction tab) or column H (Imports&Exports tab), from which scale you need to downscale. This helps you to find out for which level you need to collect proxies.
- In column H (Domestic extraction tab) or column I (Imports&Exports tab), you can note down which proxy is appropriate for the downscaling. Depending on the material and the economic activity, this can differ and suggestions for fitting proxies can be found in the Handbook.
- Find those proxies and add them to tab 4 of the Data collection sheet and the blue tabs in the Data processing sheet(s).
- Add your raw material data in the Data processing sheet in the tab that corresponds with the spatial scale that the data is for. For example, you have data for the metal extraction of your country. Add this to the tab “raw_National_Data” in column B.
In the UCA, the templates are quite advanced → when the proxies and the raw data for the spatial scale are filled in well, then the downscaling is done fairly automatically. What is more, the worksheet automatically looks for the lowest spatial scale value and shows it in the “downscaling” tab.
Find out more about Downscaling