Eco-roofs: Influence of shape and material variations on surface temperature, rainwater volume and quality

To mitigate climate change it’s of utmost importance to generate, develop, and improve green technologies. Technologies that link civil construction, architecture, and sustainability are largely necessary for this goal. Green roofs constitute technologies with high potential to contribute to the increase of the resilience of cities in the face of climate change. Since this technology is versatile and still requires many studies, we tested three different types of situations and considered three subprojects: 1–how the arrangement of fiber cement coverings can affect runoff control and water quality, the differences between the temperature in three types of tiles and the spontaneous growth in each of them; 2–how nasturtiums, once used as cover, influence water quality and thermal comfort; 3–the viability of seed germination on roofs with substrate. In subproject 1 it was concluded that spontaneous growth did not occur during the experiment period and that the arrangement of the tiles influences the ability to reduce surface runoff. In 2 we observed that the plants require frequent watering, and that nasturtium does not develop abundantly in thin layers of substrate but contributes to thermal comfort inside buildings. There was an average reduction of 6.8% in the temperature values on the substrates in Subproject 2 due to the presence of vegetation, while for the surface temperature, the values were, on average, 11.7% lower for the prototypes with vegetation cover. In subproject 3 we concluded that seed sowing directly on substrate roofs does not present satisfactory results for developing green roofs.