Green roofs can be made every where
Many manufacturers and resellers are willing to provide you with plants on your roof top. Most of them can give you specifications of the technical characteristics. However, specifications from different green roof systems can not be compared. The specifications are not based on one uniform method of calculation or measuring. In fact you do not know exactly what you are buying. Public authorities do want to give incentives to accelerate construction of green roofs on larger areas. This would solve part of their city problems like evolving from climate change. In future heavy rainfall will increase, as well as the impact on the city climate from hot summers. The air will get more poisoned with NOx and Particular Matter. The Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE) will become worse. Citizens will die early because of heat stress and respiratory illnesses. Public authorities also can not compare specifications of green roof systems when subsidized. For both clients buying a green roof and public authorities supporting construction of green roofs a uniform method of calculating and measuring specifications would be necessary. The Rotterdam University of Applied Research provides the background research to form such a set of uniform methods. This set of calculating and measuring specifications uniformly is called Classification Green Roofs. The technical specifications that are part of the research are:
- rain water run off buffering
- rain water run off slowing down
- thermal characteristics in heating conditions
- thermal characteristics in cooling conditions
- capture of NOx and PM
- resistance against wind erosion
Many manufacturers and resellers are willing to provide you with plants on your roof top. Most of them can give you specifications of the technical characteristics. However, specifications from different green roof systems can not be compared. The specifications are not based on one uniform method of calculation or measuring. In fact you do not know exactly what you are buying. Public authorities do want to give incentives to accelerate construction of green roofs on larger areas. This would solve part of their city problems like evolving from climate change. In future heavy rainfall will increase, as well as the impact on the city climate from hot summers. The air will get more poisoned with NOx and Particular Matter. The Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE) will become worse. Citizens will die early because of heat stress and respiratory illnesses. Public authorities also can not compare specifications of green roof systems when subsidized. For both clients buying a green roof and public authorities supporting construction of green roofs a uniform method of calculating and measuring specifications would be necessary. The Rotterdam University of Applied Research provides the background research to form such a set of uniform methods. This set of calculating and measuring specifications uniformly is called Classification Green Roofs. The technical specifications that are part of the research are:
- rain water run off buffering
- rain water run off slowing down
- thermal characteristics in heating conditions
- thermal characteristics in cooling conditions
- capture of NOx and PM
- resistance against wind erosion
SCREEN CAPTURES
Picture from Ecolonia, a green village in Alphen aan den Rijn, with sedum-moss vegetation on a rather steep roof.
Picture from a green roof on a flat roof. The roofs was put on a Polyethylene (PE) membrane. The membrane was not fixed to the Bitumen roof material. The roof was an experiment to test the technical feasibility to construct green roofs without professional help from a contractor. The roofs is already 20 years old on this picture. Every two to three years there is some maintenance to clean some higher growing plants form the roof.
Example of a green roof where maintenance was left out of the contract. After three years already all kind of plants settle on the roof. This is as such not a bad thing. The view on the roof is just not so nice any more.
