Paper

The Potential Roles of Biodiverse Green Roofs in the Extending Urban Green Network

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Abstract

The role of urban green network is increasingly needed due to urbanization and the growing urban population. The high number of buildings, the different infrastructural developments and the high quantity of covered surface do not allow increase greenery on the ground level; there are few residual spaces that can be turned into green areas. One solution could be the vertical walls and green roofs which can considerably help developing urban green network of the future (Susca et al., 2011). Due to the acute conflicts between high density development and limited land, many European, American and Chinese cities adopted an effective way to increase green space in high-rise building areas, such as roof gardens, wall, vertical, balcony and windowsill greening (Li et al., 2004). The range of benefits was set out in many researchers (e.g., Johnston and Newton, 1993; Wong et al., 2003; Gregoire and Clausen, 2011).

In Hungary the first green roof was built in 1991. Even since then, complex studies on green roofs have not been conducted with long-term monitoring and scientific statistical evaluation of the vegetation, substrates etc. In 2016 a PhD study was made on extensive experimental green roofs (Szőke, 2016), but it only superficially deal with biodiverse green roofs as a type of extensive green roofs, the aim of said study was not the biodiversity of green roofs. Moreover, no data is available on the number and extension of these kinds of roofs. Only a few attempts were made to organize and register green roofs in the past two decades (Szabó, 2010; Szőke et al., 2013). The number of biodiverse green roofs is low (half a dozen).

Keywords: greenways, green roofs, biodiversity, network, urban, hungary

How to Cite:

Szabó, K., (2016) “The Potential Roles of Biodiverse Green Roofs in the Extending Urban Green Network”, Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning 5(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/fabos.625