Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.13044/j.sdewes.d6.0225
Costs and Benefits of Green Roof Types for Cities and Building Owners
Sita H. van der Meulen
orcid.org/0000-0002-9909-5585
; Faculty of Technology, Innovation & Society, The Hague University of Applied Science, Johanna Westerdijkplein 75, 2521 EN, The Hague, The Netherlands
Abstract
Increasing urbanization and the effects of climate change will bring new challenges for cities, such as energy saving and supply of renewable energy, preventing urban heat islands and water retention to deal with more frequent downpours. A major urban surface, the surface of roofs, is nowadays hardly exploited and could be used to make cities more ‘future proof’ or resilient. Many Dutch municipalities have become aware
that the use of green roofs as opposed to bituminous roofs positively contributes to these challenges and are stimulating building-owners to retrofit their building with green roofs. This study aims at comparing costs and benefits of roof types, focused on green roofs (intensive and extensive) both on building- and city scale. Core question is the balance
between costs and benefits for both scales, given varying local conditions. Which policy measures might be needed in the future in order to apply green roofs strategically in regard to local demands? To answer this question the balance of costs and benefits of green roofs is divided into a public and an individual part. Both balances use a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats framework to determine the chance of success for the application of green roofs, considering that the balance for green roofs on an individual scale influences the balance on a public scale. The outcome of this combined
analyses in the conclusion verifies that a non-committal policy for green roofs is not an effective way to prepare the city sufficiently for future climate changes.
Keywords
Green roofs; Green roof policy; Urban heat island; Climate change; Retrofitting rooftops; Heat stress; Water storage.
Hrčak ID:
217810
URI
Publication date:
31.3.2019.
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