Increase of geographical barriers due to construction projects possibly affects the pattern of moving paths and travelling probability of animals. To simulate this impact in a quantitative point of view, Ecological Network Simulator (EN Simulator) was developed to examine the changing pattern of ecological network caused by the establishing of development project (ex: artificial barrier such a building) in a certain area.
Random Walk concept was adopted and provided a core algorithm in developing EN Simulator that simulates animal movement. Each random walker decides their next position by calculating easiness of travelling within given data such as surface condition, elevation difference and existence of obstacles. The informations imposed on each location are resulted from geographical barrier mapping and geomorphic informations such as presence of water body, paddy area, cultivated field, various types of roads and boundaries of a new project site.
In application methods, three different kinds of basic approaches are designed; a) Background Test (BT) for setting simulation conditions, b) Surface Condition Test (SVT) for assessing present state of ecological network and c) Project Impact Test (PIT) for assessing change of impacts by imposing a new development project plan.
In simulation process, 4 different analyzing mechanism such as Travelling Preference Analysis (TPA), Path Direction Analysis (PDA), Permeability Analysis (PA) and Path Tracing (PT) can be applied under g ...(To see more, please click on the HTML Viewer above.)