Academic literature on the topic 'Biodiverse green roof'

The reduction in evaporative surfaces in cities is one driver for longer and hotter summers. Greening building surfaces can help to mitigate the loss of vegetated cover. Typical extensive green roof structures, such as sedum-based solutions, survive in dry periods, but how can green roofs be made to be more effective for the longer hot and dry periods to come? The research findings are based on continuous vegetation analytics of typical extensive green roofs over the past 20 years. -Survival of longer dry periods by fully adapted plants species with a focus on the fittest and best adapted species. -Additional technical and treatment solutions to support greater water storage in the media in dry periods and to support greater plant biomass/high biodiversity on the roofs by optimizing growing media with fertilizer to achieve higher evapotranspiration (short: ET) values. The main findings of this research: -The climate benefits of green roofs are associated with the quantity of phytomass. Selecting the right growing media is critical. -Typical extensive green roof substrates have poor nutrition levels. Fertilizer can significantly boost the ecological effects on CO2 fixation. -If the goal of the green roof is a highly biodiverse green roof, micro-structures are the right solution.

The growing phenomenon of green roofs throughout the world mostly results in the establishment of extensive green roofs with low species diversity. However, research from the last few decades has shown that several advantages can accrue from diverse ecological systems, such as increased faunal diversity, storm water retention, thermal stability, pollution mitigation, and visual appeal. The maintenance of diversity on extensive green roofs has not been closely examined and few studies incorporate methods to ensure long-term coexistence into green roof design. Theoretical work has placed much focus on the niche and neutral theories that attempt to explain diversity as a result of the existence of different habitats or of demographic and dispersal patterns, respectively. These theories have resulted in several theoretical and practical recommendations for the maintenance of diversity in ecological systems and could suggest additional practices that would support biodiverse green roofs. We hereby review and discuss relevant theory and supporting research to provide suggestions regarding future research in the field as well as practical green roof construction recommendations and species selection.

Worldwide, urban areas are expanding both in size and number, which results in a decline in habitats suitable for urban flora and fauna. The construction of urban green features, such as green roofs, may provide suitable habitat patches for many species in urban areas. On green roofs, two approaches have been used to select plants—i.e., matching similar habitat to green roofs (habitat template approach) or identifying plants with suitable traits (plant trait approach). While both approaches may result in suitable habitats for arthropods, how arthropods respond to different combinations of plants is an open question. The aim of this study was to investigate how the structural complexity of different plant forms can affect the abundance and richness of arthropods on green roofs. The experimental design crossed the presence and absence of annuals with three Sedum sediforme (Jacq.) Pau (common name: stonecrops) treatments—i.e., uniformly disrupted Sedum, clumped disrupted Sedum, and no Sedum. We hypothesized that an increased structural diversity due to the coexistence of different life forms of plants on roofs is positively related to the abundance and richness of arthropods. We found that arthropod abundance and richness were positively associated with the percent of vegetation cover and negatively associated with substrate temperature. Neither arthropod abundance nor richness was influenced by the relative moisture of substrate. We also found that arthropod abundance and richness varied by green roof setups (treatments) and by seasonality. Arthropod abundance on green roofs was the highest in treatments with annuals only, while species richness was slightly similar between treatments containing annuals but varied between sampling periods. This study suggests that adding annuals to traditional Sedum roofs has positive effects on arthropods. This finding can support the development of biodiverse cities because most extensive green roofs are inaccessible to the public and can provide undisturbed habitat for several plant and arthropod species.

Modern urban green infrastructures are following globalisation trends and contribute to homogenization at all levels of green areas from the master plan to the finest scale. We discuss the place and role of three principal urban living spaces, the “skeleton” of green infrastructures: lawns, green walls and green roofs. This “trio” of modern GI elements provide significant ecosystem services, it contributes to biodiversity and social values; and have environmental and economic impact. The main goal of our approach to sustainable GI is to introduce a new landscape architecture style – biodiversinesque – as an alternative to the existing global homogenised picturesque-gardenesque. This new approach will combine the best achievements of innovative and alternative landscape design solutions (biodiverse lawns, pictorial meadows, walls and green roofs) and implement them on three major scales: city, intermediate neighborhood and the small biotope level.

A pot experiment was carried out in the net house of the Department of Soil, Water and Environment, University of Dhaka to evaluate the effectS of different organic manures on the growth performance, biomass production, NPKS content in leaf, stem and root of Burmese grapes (Baccaurea ramiflora) and some chemical properties of post- harvest soil. Two-month old Burmese grapes seedlings were planted in different organic manure-treated soils (viz. ACI, BGF, Bhola, Green Life, Kazi, Modern, Mazim, Payel, Payel Earth, and Shebok). A significant variation was observed among the treatments. Compared to control treatment, application of organic manures exhibited a significant influence on the physiological growth, viz. plant height (30.4 - 34.06 cm), leaf area (64.2 - 71.30 cm2/plant), leaf area index (0.17 - 0.19), fresh weight (32.2 - 53.06 g/plant), and dry weight (22.09 - 41.24 g/plant) after 120 days of the experiment. The highest plant height, leaf area, leaf area index, fresh weight, and dry weight were recorded in Kazi, BGF, Payel and Payel Earth, respectively. Similarly, the concentrations of N, P, K, and S in leaf, stem and root, and their uptakes were found significantly higher than the control. The highest N, P, K and S uptake by leaf, stem and root ranged from 37.66 - 41.69 kg/ha, 0.70 - 0.92 g/ha, 66.19 - 84.926 kg/ha and 6.82 - 10.11 kg/ha, respectively. Protein content was the highest in Payel in leaf (8%) and root (5%), and stem (7%) in Modern manure treatment. The overall results revealed that Kazi and Payel manures might be better for raising strong and healthy Burmese grape seedlings. J. Biodivers. Conserv. Bioresour. Manag. 2021, 7(1): 63-72