A few days ago, we went to talk about biodiversity preservation with professionals in real estate and urban planning.
During a webinar organized by CIBI - International Biodiversity and Real Estate Council, we specifically wanted to show how ecological modeling could be used to address very diverse challenges in project management and site planning.
We thus presented two types of approaches based on SimOïko, our simulation software for species' life.
The first, aimed at professionals with no skills in modeling, seeks to provide standardized ecological indicators for the evaluation of projects and developments.
It is based on an automatic analysis of so-called "ordinary" biodiversity, meaning the most commonly encountered species. We selected thirty of them on the scale of France, simulating their movements and demographic dynamics according to predefined parameters.
The output provides four indicators:
- Accessibility, which evaluates whether the studied site is well connected to the ecological network and can thus be reached by species.
- Responsibility, which evaluates the quality and importance of the site within the overall ecological network.
- Diversity, which estimates the number of species likely to sustain themselves on the site.
- Quiet, which measures the level of anthropogenic pressures to which the site is subjected (noise and light pollution, green space management practices, human presence).
The use of these indicators allows for both analyzing various development scenarios before their implementation and measuring the evolution of a site’s ecological quality over time.
The second approach aims, conversely, to analyze specific target species, particularly when they are associated with strong conservation concerns (protected species, etc.). This is the approach that typically meets the requirements of environmental assessments and impact studies.
In this case, SimOïko offers extensive possibilities for personalized configuration, whether it involves modifying the characteristics of natural habitats, changing the life cycle parameters of studied species, adding and configuring species not yet included in our database, etc.
This configuration work, which requires skills in ecological modeling, can either be entrusted to the teams at TerrOïko or carried out independently by the client after a short training session.
For several months now, the first beta-testing clients of the future commercial version of SimOïko have already started getting hands-on with the software. The final step before the official launch!