The ecosystem service benefits of green-roof as a part of smart ecosystem-based management: A case study in Dublin, Ireland

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srikanta Sannigrahi ◽  
Bidroha Basu ◽  
Arunima Sarkar Basu ◽  
Francesco Pilla
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Water Infiltration ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Ecosystem Based Management ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events

<p>The concept of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) as part of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) have frequently been adopted in different strategic planning as a cross-sectoral mechanism to manage environmental problems. The EBM combines all relevant approaches, methods, tools, and software that collectively provide key scientific and socioeconomic evidence and eventually address environmental issues more sustainably. The specific application of EBM in different environmental problems, including flooding, have been proven effective in many cases. This ensures the superiority of EBM approaches for designing collaborative programs for solving environmental problems. The EBM offers a variety of sustainable interventions such as reducing impervious surface through porous paving, green parking lots, brownfield restoration, and deployment of green-roofs, which collectively attenuates water runoff and peak discharge, and offers protection against extreme precipitation events by enhancing water infiltration. In addition to the targeted benefits and cost-effectiveness of EBM, the supply of potential ecosystem service co-benefits that usually comes with EBM can contribute substantially to generating environmental benefits and adds community well-being. In order to analyse the superior effects of green-roof as a part of a smart-EBM framework, which has been deployed in CHQ building in Dublin, Ireland, a conceptual upscaling scenario framework has been formulated for measuring the city scale impact of green-roofs in providing multiple-valued ecosystem services. The biophysical and economic benefits of smart green-roof EBM will be estimated using varied ecosystem service modelling and standard cost-benefit analysis. The proposed smart green-roof framework is expected to have a more significant impact in minimising the flooding problems in Dublin city and expected to provide multiple regulating, supporting provisioning, and cultural benefits that can collectively surpass the deployment cost of green-roofs in the long run.</p>

Green roof hydrologic performance and modeling: a review

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanling Li ◽  
Roger W. Babcock
Keyword(s):  
Peak Flow ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Model Soil ◽  
Runoff Volume

Green roofs reduce runoff from impervious surfaces in urban development. This paper reviews the technical literature on green roof hydrology. Laboratory experiments and field measurements have shown that green roofs can reduce stormwater runoff volume by 30 to 86%, reduce peak flow rate by 22 to 93% and delay the peak flow by 0 to 30 min and thereby decrease pollution, flooding and erosion during precipitation events. However, the effectiveness can vary substantially due to design characteristics making performance predictions difficult. Evaluation of the most recently published study findings indicates that the major factors affecting green roof hydrology are precipitation volume, precipitation dynamics, antecedent conditions, growth medium, plant species, and roof slope. This paper also evaluates the computer models commonly used to simulate hydrologic processes for green roofs, including stormwater management model, soil water atmosphere and plant, SWMS-2D, HYDRUS, and other models that are shown to be effective for predicting precipitation response and economic benefits. The review findings indicate that green roofs are effective for reduction of runoff volume and peak flow, and delay of peak flow, however, no tool or model is available to predict expected performance for any given anticipated system based on design parameters that directly affect green roof hydrology.

scholarly journals Analysis of roof greening technology impact on rain and meltwater retention

2020 ◽  
Vol 175 ◽  
pp. 11023
Author(s):  
Elena Sysoeva ◽  
Margarita Gelmanova
Keyword(s):  
High Efficiency ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Substrate Thickness ◽  
Runoff Reduction ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Analytical Review

Over the past 20 years, a large number of studies have been published on reducing storm runoff by various types of green roofs. This article analyzes the results of experimental studies presented in 39 publications on green roof runoff reduction in a climate similar to the climate of Russia: in Canada, the USA, Finland, Norway, France. An analytical review found that the ability of green roofs to retain rainfall varies from 20 to 99.5% depending on climatic conditions (duration and intensity of rains, duration of dry periods, solar radiation, temperature and humidity, wind conditions), the properties of green roof layers (moisture capacity of the substrate and a drainage layer, the substrate thickness), the type of vegetation, the geometry of a green roof (slope and orientation). Green roofs can be a useful tool for reducing urban storm water runoff. However, in order to ensure high efficiency, it is necessary to use green roof technology with other measures to reduce runoff.

The Potential of Recycled Locally-Sourced Waste Materials for Green Roof Soil Mixtures

2017 ◽  
Vol 730 ◽  
pp. 445-451
Author(s):  
Hartini Kasmin ◽  
Siti Nur Ummiah Munir ◽  
Nur Syafira Razak ◽  
Nor Azizi Yusoff ◽  
Rosniza Kassim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Waste Materials ◽  
Peat Moss ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Maximum Water ◽  
Soil Mixtures

The increase in surface runoff has become a serious environmental problem and concern in Malaysia. Hence, promoting the use of green roofs in urban areas will potentially allow some storage area and time attenuation for any rainfall. Initial studies on a few substrate mixtures were done in order to find out the properties of green roof media. These included vermiculite (V), perlite (P) and peat moss (PM) together with locally-sourced waste materials such as empty fruit bunches (EFB) and wet diaper gel (D) which are expected to potentially retain more storm water runoff. A test on the substrate mixture properties and evaporation tests were conducted on seven types of soil mixtures. The results show that a basic substrate mixture of PVPM3,5,2 has a maximum water capacity of 50%. The modification and addition of diaper gel in DVPM1,3,2 and empty fruit bunch (EFB) in PEFBPM1,0.3,2 show an increment in both mixtures’ water holding capacity (54%). All the proposed mixtures have shown permeability values larger than 0.0005 cm/s. To investigate the maximum water storage availability, the evaporation tests show that both mixtures could provide 60 - 62 mm of water storage after 34 days without rainfall under ambient climatic condition (32 ̊ to 34 ̊) whereas under extreme heat temperatures (50 ̊), both mixtures took only 1 day to provide the same storage as the ambient condition. Therefore, this study has provided an initial understanding of the properties of the substrate mixture as well as the evaporation rate of the materials tested. This information can be used to demonstrate the relationship between soil characteristics and local climatic factors (temperature).

scholarly journals Evaluating different machine learning methods to simulate runoff from extensive green roofs

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (11) ◽  
pp. 5917-5935
Author(s):  
Elhadi Mohsen Hassan Abdalla ◽  
Vincent Pons ◽  
Virginia Stovin ◽  
Simon De-Ville ◽  
Elizabeth Fassman-Beck ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Storm Water ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Learning Methods ◽  
Retention Model ◽  
Machine Learning Methods ◽  
Storm Water Runoff ◽  
Extensive Green Roofs

Abstract. Green roofs are increasingly popular measures to permanently reduce or delay storm-water runoff. The main objective of the study was to examine the potential of using machine learning (ML) to simulate runoff from green roofs to estimate their hydrological performance. Four machine learning methods, artificial neural network (ANN), M5 model tree, long short-term memory (LSTM) and k nearest neighbour (kNN), were applied to simulate storm-water runoff from 16 extensive green roofs located in four Norwegian cities across different climatic zones. The potential of these ML methods for estimating green roof retention was assessed by comparing their simulations with a proven conceptual retention model. Furthermore, the transferability of ML models between the different green roofs in the study was tested to investigate the potential of using ML models as a tool for planning and design purposes. The ML models yielded low volumetric errors that were comparable with the conceptual retention models, which indicates good performance in estimating annual retention. The ML models yielded satisfactory modelling results (NSE >0.5) in most of the roofs, which indicates an ability to estimate green roof detention. The variations in ML models' performance between the cities was larger than between the different configurations, which was attributed to the different climatic characteristics between the four cities. Transferred ML models between cities with similar rainfall events characteristics (Bergen–Sandnes, Trondheim–Oslo) could yield satisfactory modelling performance (Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency NSE >0.5 and percentage bias |PBIAS| <25 %) in most cases. However, we recommend the use of the conceptual retention model over the transferred ML models, to estimate the retention of new green roofs, as it gives more accurate volume estimates. Follow-up studies are needed to explore the potential of ML models in estimating detention from higher temporal resolution datasets.

scholarly journals Physical Characteristics of and Seed Germination in Commercial Green Roof Substrates

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derald A. Harp ◽  
Cheng Chen ◽  
Curtis Jones
Keyword(s):  
Seed Germination ◽  
Block Design ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Physical Characteristics ◽  
Internal Cooling ◽  
Pinto Bean ◽  
Expanded Shale

Green roofs provide multiple environmental and economic benefits, such as roof surface temperature reduction, reduced internal cooling needs, storm water management, and extended life span of roofing materials. However, green roof substrates must be relatively lightweight, so it is typically coarse with limited water holding capacity. We hypothesize the physical characteristics that make the substrates successful on a roof are likely to reduce seed germination. For this study, we tested the germination of three perennial species and one annual: shasta daisy (Leucanthemum ×superbum), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), and indian blanket (Gaillardia pulchella), and pinto bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) (as a control) across five different substrates: peat/perlite/large expanded shale, compost/sand/expanded shale, compost/black dirt/expanded shale, compost/expanded shale, and peat/perlite (control). Substrate physical and chemical properties were analyzed, and a germination test conducted using a randomized complete block design, with each species/substrate combination appearing once per block. Germination was defined as seedling emergence, and monitored every 7 days for 28 days. Pinto bean had the highest germination (76.2%) across all substrates, compared with 43.4% for indian blanket, 40.4% for yarrow, and 23.0% for shasta daisy. Seed germination, across all species, was lower in green roof substrates. Germination success was very strongly correlated with seed length, seed width, and seed area, while no relationship was found between seed germination and substrate pH or electrical conductivity (EC). Therefore, it is likely that the physical characteristics of green roof substrates create poor conditions for seed germination.

scholarly journals Site Conditions, Maintenance Costs, and Plant Performance of 10 Extensive Green Roofs in the Research Triangle Area of Central North Carolina

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 761-769
Author(s):  
Julieta Trevino Sherk ◽  
Wenyan Fu ◽  
Joseph C. Neal
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Plant Cover ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Plant Performance ◽  
Site Conditions ◽  
Maintenance Costs ◽  
Research Triangle ◽  
Highly Correlated

Compared with traditional roofing, green roofs (GRs) have quantifiable environmental and economic benefits, yet limited research exists on GR plant survival, maintenance practices, and costs related to plant performance. The objective of this study was to assess plant cover, site conditions, and maintenance practices on 10 extensive GRs in the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina. Green roof maintenance professionals were surveyed to assess plant performance, maintenance practices, and maintenance costs. Vegetation cover on each site was characterized. Relationships among plant performance and environmental and physical site characteristics, and maintenance practices were evaluated. Survey respondents ranked weed control as the most problematic maintenance task, followed by irrigation, pruning, and debris removal. No single design or maintenance factor was highly correlated with increased plant cover. Green roof age, substrate organic matter, and modular planting methods were not correlated with greater plant cover. Results showed a trend that irrigation increased plant cover. Plants persisting on GRs included several species of stonecrop (Sedum sp.), but flame flower (Talium calycinum) and ice plant (Delosperma basuticum) were also present in high populations on at least one roof each. Green roof maintenance costs ranged from $0.13/ft2 to $3.45/ft2 per year, and were greater on sites with more weeds and frequent hand watering.

scholarly journals AN ANALYSIS ON THE EFFICIENCY OF GREEN ROOF IN MANAGING URBAN STORMWATER RUNOFF

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (17) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shazmin Shareena Ab. Azis ◽  
Muhammad Najib Mohamed Razali ◽  
Nurul Hana Adi Maimun ◽  
Nurul Syakima Mohd Yusoff ◽  
Mohd Shahril Abdul Rahman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Flash Flood ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Drainage System ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Storm Water ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Extensive Green Roof ◽  
Storm Water Runoff ◽  
Urban Storm

Modernization has created new impervious urban landscape contributed to major catastrophe. Urban drainage system incapable to convey the excess rainwater resulting in flash flood due to heavy rainfall. The combination of green roof on building have tremendously proved to control stormwater efficiently. This study is conducted to review the efficiency of intensive and extensive green roof in reducing urban storm water runoff. This study identifies characteristic of green roof that contributes to lessening urban storm water runoff. Data was collected based on rigorous literature reviews and analyzed using meta-analysis. Overall, findings revealed intensive green roof performed better in reducing storm water runoff compared to extensive green roof. Green roof performance increases as the depth of substrate increased. Origanum and Sedum plants are both highly effective for intensive and extensive green roofs. The performance of green roof reduces as degree of roof slope increased.

scholarly journals Growing substrates for aromatic plant species in green roofs and water runoff quality: pilot experiments in a Mediterranean climate

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (5) ◽  
pp. 1081-1089 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina M. Monteiro ◽  
Cristina S. C. Calheiros ◽  
Paulo Palha ◽  
Paula M. L. Castro
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Mediterranean Climate ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Oxygen Demand ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Aromatic Plant ◽  
Runoff Quality

Green roof technology has evolved in recent years as a potential solution to promote vegetation in urban areas. Green roof studies for Mediterranean climates, where extended drought periods in summer contrast with cold and rainy periods in winter, are still scarce. The present research study assesses the use of substrates with different compositions for the growth of six aromatic plant species – Lavandula dentata, Pelargonium odoratissimum, Helichrysum italicum, Satureja montana, Thymus caespititius and T. pseudolanuginosus, during a 2-year period, and the monitoring of water runoff quality. Growing substrates encompassed expanded clay and granulated cork, in combination with organic matter and crushed eggshell. These combinations were adequate for the establishment of all aromatic plants, allowing their propagation in the extensive system located on the 5th storey. The substrate composed of 70% expanded clay and 30% organic matter was the most suitable, and crushed eggshell incorporation improved the initial plant establishment. Water runoff quality parameters – turbidity, pH, conductivity, NH4+, NO3−, PO43- and chemical oxygen demand – showed that it could be reused for non-potable uses in buildings. The present study shows that selected aromatic plant species could be successfully used in green roofs in a Mediterranean climate.

scholarly journals Are Biocrusts and Xerophytic Vegetation a Viable Green Roof Typology in a Mediterranean Climate? A Comparison between Differently Vegetated Green Roofs in Water Runoff and Water Quality

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Bernardo Rocha ◽  
Teresa A. Paço ◽  
Ana Catarina Luz ◽  
Paulo Palha ◽  
Sarah Milliken ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Impact Of Urbanization ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Almost All

Green roofs can be an innovative and effective way of mitigating the environmental impact of urbanization by providing several important ecosystem services. However, it is known that the performance of green roofs varies depending on the type of vegetation and, in drier climates, without resorting to irrigation, these are limited to xerophytic plant species and biocrusts. The aim of this research was therefore to compare differently vegetated green roofs planted with this type of vegetation. A particular focus was their ability to hold water during intense stormwater events and also the quality of the harvested rainwater. Six test beds with different vegetation compositions were used on the roof of a building in Lisbon. Regarding stormwater retention, the results varied depending on the composition of the vegetation and the season. As for water quality, almost all the parameters tested were higher than the Drinking Water Directive from the European Union (EU) and Word Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for drinking-water quality standards for potable water. Based on our results, biocrusts and xerophytic vegetation are a viable green roof typology for slowing runoff during stormwater events.

scholarly journals Developing an evaluation tool for green roof typologies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Laidlaw
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Evaluation Tool ◽  
Quality Maintenance ◽  
The Future ◽  
Criteria For Evaluation ◽  
Specific Project ◽  
Runoff Quality

Green roofs possess the potential to provide a plethora of benefits in the urban environment. The variability among the green roof typologies (intensive, extensive, and agriculture) leads to different benefits when one system is selected over another. By the collection and analyzing of metadata, an evaluation tool is developed to assist green roof designers to meet the goals of their specific project. Included criteria for evaluation are: water runoff quantity, water runoff quality, maintenance, amenity, and irrigation. The evaluation tool is designed to be compartmentalized, with each criteria treated independently, allowing further expansion, alteration, or refinement of the tool in the future.

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