Improving Stormwater Retention on Green Roofs
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The Journal of Living Architecture is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal, published by the Green Infrastructure Foundation and hosted by the Living Architecture Monitor Magazine. Learn more about the Journal, read all Journal articles, or find out how to submit to the Journal.
Volume 9 Number 2
D. Bradley Rowe1*, K. L. Getter 1
Department of Horticulture, Michigan State University, USA
*corresponding author: rowed@msu.edu
Abstract
Impervious surfaces such as roads, parking lots, and buildings along with the lack of investment in infrastructure has led to stormwater management problems such as flooding and combined sewage overflows, especially in urban areas. Therefore, there has been a concerted effort to design green roof systems to maximize stormwater retention and satisfy local stormwater codes. In this study, 21 green roof tables were constructed and utilized to compare nine green roof treatments including a roof water reservoir designed to provide temporary water storage (blue roof), two commercially available module systems, these module systems combined with a blue roof underneath (blue-green roof), rockwool, pavers, gravel, and the roofing membrane alone. All runoff events were analyzed together as one data set and then again when categorized by relative intensity as light (<7.0 mm (0.27 in)), medium (7.0 – 20.0 mm (0.27 in – 0.79 in)), or heavy (>20.0 mm (>0.79 in))[OS1] . Adding the RoofBlue system to the LiveRoof Standard and Lite systems improved retention by 29.4% and 37.9%, respectively, during heavy rain events when stormwater runoff is most likely to be a problem. Overall, the rockwool and blue-green roof systems retained the greatest quantity of stormwater and were found to be comparable.
Read the full article at: https://doi.org/10.46534/jliv.2022.09.02.002
Key words: blue roof, blue-green roof, mineral wool, rockwool, stormwater runoff
This peer-reviewed article is provided free and open-access.
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