Biodiversity Assessment System Made More Practical

Shimizu Corp., one of the largest general contractors in Japan, announced on October 6, 2010, that it has successfully developed Urban Ecological Network Light (UE-Net Light), a more practical version of its UE-NET system. UE-NET Light is a simplified assessment system for helping developers to visualize the diversity of birds and insects living around construction sites, and is expected to help expand bio-diverse areas in cities.

The new system features easy operation for laypersons in biology such as sales or design staff, and takes only around two days to conduct an assessment. Applying the system for the first time to a housing complex construction site in Minato Ward, Tokyo, the company confirmed the possibility that flying creatures such as titmice may come from the Imperial Palace.

Even metropolitan areas like Tokyo have bio-diverse spaces in their lush, if scattered, parks. Tokyo has more than 10,000 public parks with a vegetated area of 2,500-square-meters or more, which provide habitat to flying creatures such as birds and insects. Although the parks are isolated from each other by surrounding residential and commercial areas, building green networks by adding vegetated spaces or biotopes at 50 to 200-meter intervals is expected to increase the emergence of flying creatures from parks.

Making it possible to quantitatively apprehend the cost effectiveness related to biodiversity conservation, the new system is expected to encourage more firms to establish greenery and biotopes as a corporate social responsibility.

Posted: 2011/01/19 06:00:15 AM