Green roofs have been heralded as a "sustainable building practice" in cities throughout the world as one response to mounting environmental stresses. A range of stressors plus erosion of aesthetics and human well being in urban areas have initiated policies and practices often with incentives to develop green infrastructure such as green roofs. They provide a suite of public and private benefits most of which map onto services generally provided by the ecosystem. Green roof development imbeds in environmental design processes and is constrained by both human and environmental factors.As relatively small, simple, anthropogenic ecosystems, green roofs relate to several existing conceptual and applied ecological ideas. Understanding and applying from ecology and ecosystem studies, ecological engineering, managed ecosystems, construction ecology, urban ecology, landscape ecology, restoration ecology, reconciliation ecology, soil ecology and community ecology show green roof ecosystems can be created to cycle energy and nutrients. Furthermore, green roofs can be constructed to model an ecosystem and may provide a setting for testing ecological concepts. This book takes an ecosystems approach to describing a large number of interactions on green roofs placing them in the total human ecosystem.
Native prairie species have been both promoted and questioned in their ability to serve as vegetative covers for green roofs. The green roof environment with its exposure to intense sun and wind and limited moisture restricts the capacity for a large diversity of species. The result has been, in many cases, a standard, low-diversity mix of Sedum species often focused on ornament and minimizes the potential for wider environmental benefits. We reviewed the ecological literature on prairie and grassland communities with specific reference to habitat templates from stressed environmental conditions and examined analogs of prairie-based vegetation on twenty-one existing green roofs. We found that many, but not all prairie and grassland species will survive and thrive on green roofs, especially when irrigated as needed or given adequate growing medium depth. We raise several important questions about media, irrigation, temperature, biodiversity and their interactions needing more study.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify what strategies and mechanisms might be utilised to achieve an effective level of participation by multi-national construction enterprises in post-disaster recovery efforts. Design/methodology/approach -An exploratory qualitative research methodology has been utilised. A total of 28 interviews were conducted. The respondents were from multi-national construction enterprises, international and national humanitarian agencies, construction industry professional organisations, and national government agencies related to disaster management. Findings -The findings suggest that there is great potential for using the resources of multi-national construction enterprise resources to fill the professional resource gap in post-disaster recovery. The best method for achieving this engagement is less clear. Although there are concerns about construction enterprises engaging with a more strategic outlook, there is also recognition that explicit and transparent arrangements would alleviate many of these concerns. Originality/value -The value of building partnerships with the private sector is slowly being realised, but it remains a niche phenomenon and more research is required. This study provides a better understanding of the nature and extent of the relationship between multi-national construction enterprises and efforts to reconstruct buildings and infrastructure following a disaster.
Do green roofs and green walls have aesthetic benefits? Most green roof proponents would say so. But what are they and how do they relate to green roof design in terms of species selection, planting arrangement, viewable context, access, maintenance and other factors? Aesthetics according to the Green Roof Design 101 Manual 2 nd Ed (GRHC 2006) provides "pleasureand psycho-physiologically-oriented benefits" but, this narrow understanding suggests that the aesthetic potential of green roofs is limited to what one might experience looking upon any garden. We suggest other ways that need exploring to make aesthetics more relevant and understandable to the practice of wall and roof greening.We suggest other ways that need exploring to make aesthetics more relevant and understandable to the practice of wall and roof greening.
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