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Green roofs are often claimed to provide a range of environmental, economic and social benefits, or ‘ecosystem services’. These reported benefits, suggests that green roofs could play a significant role in sustainable urban development, and consequently green roofs are now widely used as tools in urban planning strategies. Accordingly, it is releva...
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... three services were delineated as described below and illustrated in Fig. 1. 1) Reduction of the UHI effect: Cooling potential of green roofs at pedestrian level (1-2 m above ground), expressed as maximum temperature difference created by green roofs compared with conventional roofs reported in °C. 2) Reduction of urban air pollution: Pollution removal at roof level, expressed as annual removal in g per m 2 green ...
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The irrigation of extensive green roofs with recycled or saline water could contribute to the conservation of valuable drinking water supplies. In such cases, the continuous monitoring of substrate electrical conductivity (ECsw) is of immense importance for the sustainable growth of the plants growing on the green roof. The present study aimed to e...
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... During peak daylight hours, the soil layer absorbs and stores solar energy, preventing direct thermal transmission to the roofing substrate, while at night, it facilitates the dissipation of this stored thermal energy through radiative and convective processes. This synergistic effect, enhanced by vegetative shading, has been proven to significantly reduce thermal ingress into building interiors, with documented reductions ranging from 7% to 70% [31]. ...
Urban areas face significant environmental challenges, notably rainwater management and the urban heat island effect. As sustainable ecological infrastructures, Green roofs provide dual benefits in addressing these issues. The literature review thoroughly explores how effective green roofs are at boosting urban resilience by mitigating Urban Heat Island effects and enhancing stormwater control. Findings across various studies indicate that green roofs could significantly reduce surface and ambient temperatures, with some studies reporting surface temperature reductions of up to 30 °C. Additionally, green roofs contribute to stormwater management by retaining at lseast 51% of annual rainfall, thereby reducing runoff volume and peak flow rates. By synthesizing data from 28 case studies worldwide, this review highlights the substantial environmental benefits green roofs offer in urban settings. Our analysis suggests that broader implementation and further research into green roof technologies are essential for sustainable urban development. This paper calls for increased integration of green roofs into urban planning to leverage their environmental benefits, particularly in mitigating climate change impacts and enhancing urban ecological systems.
... Given that Benin city is a fast developing major city in Nigeria [43], the integration of technological solutions in the housing sector such as improved open ridge ventilated thatched roofs may reduce the existing vulnerabilities of the city to heat stress [75]. Since construction activities in areas surrounding cities often leads to expansion, the use of building materials for future constructions such as light-colored paints that would increase the reflectivity of sunlight can also help to reduce the heat load of buildings within the city [11]. It is imperative for the city planners to evaluate different cooling strategies in buildings [91] especially with the knowledge of their analogues in the context of climate change and take preventative actions to enhance the city's resilience. ...
Responding to the threats of climate change by cities requires taking relevant actions that will communicate future conditions in reliable and effective manner for sustainable and transformational climate actions. We used the analog approach to assess the geographical shifts and changes in average temperature conditions for six traditional and economic cities under different climate scenarios (Mitigated and Unmitigated scenarios). We calculated the similarity in temperature between each pixel for the current (2021–2050) and future (2041–2070) conditions of the cities, with every pixel globally in the historical (1971–200) period. Our analysis revealed that; (1) the temperature of the cities in the current and future periods will be similar to conditions of another place on the globe during the historical period; (2) Kano city will experience even more drastic changes because of the low level of similarity to other places; (3) the new places found with similar temperature conditions are generally to the south of the corresponding cities thus indicating warming. The overall results show that the analogues of the cities are within the domain of the global tropical zone which occurs around the equator. Drawing from the interaction between cities and their analogues, we highlighted sustainable city related actions such as the incorporation of urban designs and policies to enhance human thermal comfort as adaptation and solution strategies. While future research might apply qualitative studies and additional data to support the analog results, our findings can guide the understanding and application of the analog approach into environmental issues in Nigeria and other West African countries in accordance to sustainable city goals (SDG 11).
... (6) By installing green roofs, urban air quality can improve. Green roofs can reduce particulate matter such as PM 10 , PM 2.5 , O 3 , nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide in ambient air [68,133,[160][161][162][163]. ...
It is evident that, due to population growth, future urbanization and urban growth are inevitable. It is estimated that the food supply demand of future urban centers will grow, which will place an additional burden on the agriculture sector to produce more food. It is projected that securing the food supply chain for future urban centers will be a challenge. Urban agriculture can be regarded as a remedy for possible future challenges that the global food system will face. It might be able to reduce the future burden on the agriculture sector. This research proposes that urban rooftop agriculture, as a subset of urban agriculture, can produce local fresh food in dense urban environments. The principal aim of this research is to suggest a series of design recommendations for architects interested in designing residential buildings capable of rooftop food production. This research attempts to highlight the specific design recommendations and the principal limitations regarding designing residential rooftop farms. To extract the data for developing the proposed design
recommendations and limitations, a review of the literature within the fields of urban agriculture, building-integrated agriculture, and horticulture was conducted. Based on the literature review results, this research suggests that the following three types of farming methods can be developed on residential rooftops: (1) open-air rooftop food production, (2) “low-tech” rooftop greenhouses, and (3) “high-tech” rooftop greenhouses. In addition, factors that can be considered principal limitations
are suggested. In sum, this research proposes that current and future residential buildings can be designed so that their rooftops are utilized as farms. In this way, such buildings can contribute to delivering local fresh food to current and future metropolitan dwellers.
... Additionally, some research has assessed the supply, regulation, and support of ecosystem services provided by UEI, offering insights into its status, functionality, and potential Langemeyer and Connolly, 2020;Li et al., 2017b). At a smaller scale, cultural services provided by green spaces (Zhang et al., 2015a), regulation services offered by green roofs (Francis and Jensen, 2017), and landscape value provided by parks (Bieling et al., 2014) have been hot topics in UEI research. Although the general policies and recommendations on UEI can be applied on multiple scales, if these research results do not have clear indicators to guide the actual operation, these recommendations cannot be truly implemented in the actual UEI construction. ...
... This development led to the publication of the first embryonal German guidelines 'principles for green roofs' in 1982 and eventually to the first guidelines 'for the planning, construction and maintenance of green roofing ' in 1990' in (FLL 2018Krupka 1992). These constructed biotopes at the interface among architecture, landscape architecture and urban ecology, deliver several ES such as regulating (water management, air quality, microclimate), provisioning (biodiversity, pollinator, food when intensive GR is used for urban agriculture) and cultural (community and social benefits) depending on their design and maintenance effort as stand-alone solutions (Berardi et al. 2014;Francis and Jensen 2017;Liu et al. 2021), or in connection with other GBI (Chatzimentor et al. 2020;Marando et al. 2019;Saaroni et al. 2018). ...
Green roofs (GRs) belong to the third type of NbS, namely, the creation of new ecosystems synthetically defined as surfaces detached from the ground, spontaneously colonised by plants, or intentionally greened. Their strength lies in the multiple benefits (co-benefits) they offer to single buildings and the urban environment as a whole: from the absorption of air pollutants and the reduction of energy consumption in buildings to the provision of biodiversity. Concerning the latter service, if GRs are designed according to the principle of restoration ecology following the habitat template approach, they can play a key role as stepping stones to becoming part of the urban ecological network and the urban green infrastructure. Conceiving GRs as landscapes instead of flat homogeneous surfaces will improve biodiversity, for example, by varying substrate type and thickness, adding small temporary ponds and foreseeing areas with scattered vegetation. Among others, a way to select plant species and communities for green roofs is to take the phytosociological classification as a template given by the characteristic, diagnostic and recurrent species of natural stands. An accurate preliminary site analysis is essential to select the proper natural template and to replicate the edaphic conditions characterising it.
... Green roofs also provide ecological benefits by supporting urban flora and fauna biodiversity and functioning as ecological corridors [6,[31][32][33][34]. Finally, some revision work highlights how green roofs can affect different types of ecosystem services [35,36]. ...
Extensive Green Roofs (EGRs) are nature-based solutions that provide several environmental, health, social, and economic benefits. This review of about 1430 scientific papers, based on the five Ws, When, Where, Why, Who, and Which, aims to understand how interest in these important green infrastructures originated and developed, as well as the nature of such academic research. Special attention was paid to the way researchers approached plant selection. Furthermore, this review made a detailed quantitative evaluation of the growth in interest for such green infrastructures within the scientific literature, which began mainly in Europe around the middle of the last century before spreading to America and Asia, growing rapidly during recent decades. The main impulse behind the study of EGRs came from the fields of engineering and architecture, especially on the themes of thermal mitigation and runoff reduction. In decreasing order, we found the categories aimed at ecological and environmental issues, substrate, and pollution reduction. We also found little evidence of collaboration between different disciplines, with the result that botanical features generally receive little attention. Despite the ecological benefits of plants, not enough attention has been given to them in the literature, and their study and selection are often limited to Sedum species.
... Because Benin City is fast becoming a megacity, the integration of technological solutions in the housing sector such as improved open ridge ventilated thatched roofs may reduce the existing vulnerabilities to heat [48]. Since construction in areas surrounding cities leads to expansion, building materials for future construction in Benin City such as light-colored paints that would increase the re ectivity of sunlight, can also reduce the heat load of buildings [32]. ...
Responding to the threats of climate change by cities requires taking relevant actions that will communicate the future conditions in a relatable and effective manner for sustainable and transformational climate actions. We used the analog approach to assess the geographical shifts and changes in average temperature conditions for six traditional and economic cities under different climate scenarios (Mitigated and Unmitigated scenarios). We calculated the similarity in temperature between each pixel for the current (2021-2050) and future (2041-2070) conditions of the cities, with every pixel globally in the historical (1971-200) period. Our analysis revealed that; (1) the temperature of the cities in the current and future periods will be similar to conditions of another place on the globe during the historical period; (2) Kano City will experience even more drastic changes because of the low level of similarity; (3) the new places found with the similar temperature conditions are generally to the south of the corresponding cities thus indicating warming. We highlighted the benefits of sustainable lessons that can be drawn from the interactions between the cities and their analogs through informed decisions to meet the demand for local adaptation and adopt comprehensive suites of integrated solutions to facilitate efforts on response strategies.
... Based on the five common factors affecting the energy saving and cooling performance of green roofs, including climate type, season, plant type, insulation thickness and substrate thickness, a regression analysis was conducted to obtain the regression model: , dsub is the substrate thickness, dinsu is the thickness of insulation, pl is the plant type dummy variable (0 for non-Cynthiaceae, 1 for Cynthiaceae), α is the constant term, β1 to β4 are the coefficients of each variable, respectively, e is the error term. Simulations were conducted based on green roof samples, which showed that the average level of cooling energy savings was 29.5%, consistent with the results concluded in other studies [25,26]. In general, because the shading effect and transpiration of plants have the effect of reducing the building temperature and the intake temperature of air conditioning system, this cooling effect can save the energy usage of cooling system of building and mitigate UHE. ...
With the development of society, environmental problems are getting more and more attention. As the capital of China, Beijing has growth rapidly in recent decades. Since the accelerated development of urbanization, the scale of urban areas in Beijing has been expanding and urban energy consumption has increased, all of which have influenced the heat island distribution pattern of the city. Therefore, it is meaningful to study and investigate the urban heat effect in Beijing. This paper analyses the situation and development of the heat island effect in Beijing, gives the reasons for the generation and intensification of the urban heat effect. Then, the paper highlights the impact of the energy consumption of building air conditioning systems on the urban heat effect, while citing some methods and technologies that can reduce the energy consumption of building air conditioning. It reflects the importance of reducing the energy consumption of air conditioning systems to mitigate the heat island effect.
... The methods applied to assess ES differ for each type of service. For instance, cultural services are often based on surveys and interviews (Francis and Jensen 2017). However, regulating and supporting services depend on basic data obtained through field sampling or experimentally (Prudencio and Null 2018), whereas economic valuation is frequently adopted to evaluate provisioning ES (Wiafe 2016). ...
Urban green infrastructure (UGI) can provide key ecosystem services (ES) for human well-being. For this purpose, it is critical to ascertain which characteristics regulate the provision of ES by UGI. In this study, eight ES (water supply, water regulation, waste regulation, nutrient regulation, soil formation, carbon sequestration, air temperature regulation and air humidity regulation) of thirty UGI sites of Zaragoza (Spain), were evaluated using proxy indicators derived from analyzed soil samples, and in-situ measured air temperature and humidity. A principal component analysis was performed to group different ES, and to study the dispersion of different types of UGI along the distinct ES. Additionally, relationships, between the evaluated ES and predictors; flatness, imperviousness, regularity, naturalness and functioning of the UGI sites were studied through linear and quadratic regressions. Large UGI sites such as riparian zones, meanders and natural forests showed relatively high values of ES in contrast with more artificial sites. Moreover, the study showed that water supply, water regulation, soil formation, carbon sequestration and air temperature regulation were significantly and positively related to ecological naturalness and functioning, while imperviousness was the main predictor explaining the reduction of five ES. Our findings provide evidence for the existence of important interactions between predictor variables and ES in UGI. It also showed that the provision of urban ES can be improved expanding the variety and type of green infrastructure sites, decreasing impervious area, and increasing the naturalness and functioning of UGI.
... Climate-related policy and funding are also cultural, with fads and fashions in funding and prioritized projects impacting what candidate solutions are available to communities [18]. For example, investment in urban green spaces has exploded, but meta-analyses reveal that urban green spaces can have neutral or even negative impacts on heat, energy consumption and equity, depending on the dynamics of the communities where they are introduced [19,20]. Urban green spaces are candidate adaptations; their adaptiveness depends on specific local social and ecological dynamics [5,21]. ...
There is global consensus that we must immediately prioritize climate change adaptation—change in response to or anticipation of risks from climate change. Some researchers and policymakers urge ‘transformative change’, a complete break from past practices, yet report having little data on whether new practices reduce the risks communities face, even over the short term. However, researchers have some leads: human communities have long generated solutions to changing climate, and scientists who study culture have examples of effective and persistent solutions. This theme issue discusses cultural adaptation to climate change, and in this paper, we review how processes of biological adaptation, including innovation, modification, selective retention and transmission, shape the landscapes decision-makers care about—from which solutions emerge in communities, to the spread of effective adaptations, to regional or global collective action. We introduce a comprehensive portal of data and models on cultural adaptation to climate change, and we outline ways forward.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture’.
