Basic approach
The Biodiversity Simple Evaluation Tool (BSET) is a simulation tool for buildings and their grounds, and applies the Habitat Evaluation Procedure (HEP) concept to quantitatively assess the effects of rooftop and wall greening as well as the ecosystem conservation effects of planting or setting up biotopes at the site. BSET is used to create proposals at the design stage.
With BSET, the greening plan for buildings are classified into the following parts: waterside, trees and ground cover plants (GCP) such as grassy areas. These parts’ ecological features (such as whether there are aquatic plants, whether the trees bear fruit, whether the greenery is used by urban wildlife, etc.) are numerically assessed for “quality” (indicated by a Habitat Suitability Index: HSI), which are then multiplied by their respective areas to get their evaluations (indicated by Habitat Units: HU). Furthermore, these evaluations are multiplied by their unique BSET-assigned weights (for example, in certain cases the waterside is evaluated as x times more than the trees even for the same metric area). The overall evaluation of the site’s greening plan for the given arrangement of all these parts is then calculated.
BSET includes 519 plant types in an extensive database that is a game changer in terms of accuracy of its quality assessments (HSI). It can, for example, show the change in overall evaluation if a spotted laurel (Aucuba japonica) is changed to Japanese ash (Fraxinus lanuginosa) even with the same planting arrangement.
