Roof Talk-101 What Are The Four Top Reasons Green Roofs Are Good For The Environment
- Because the rooftops in urban areas spend all day gathering heat from the sunlight, at night they create a "heat island," radiating out the heat they've absorbed. This has been shown to actually change the normal temperature of urban places. Rooftops covered in plants, however, would mitigate this effect, and instead of absorbing the heat, absorb the carbon dioxide in the air.
Placing plants on rooftops can also help cleanse the air and, as Science
Channel states above, absorb waters from rainstorms and prevent overflow in
gutters and sewers, overflow which has the potential to pollute nearby
waterways.- Rooftops covered in grasses and shrubs also provide much needed habitat for animals that would otherwise be out of luck. Birds and pollinating insects benefit from the return of plants that disappeared when the buildings were built.
Green roofs also provide important green space for
us humans. From the rooftop of the California Academy of Sciences in San
Francisco, CA to the conversion of an old train track into the park-like
Highline in New York, NY, green spaces provide people with a wonderful respite
from the hard, grey urban setting. And, as researchers have shown, when we spend
time in nature, we're not only nicer and healthier, but we are more likely to
want to protect the environment. That's an important side effect of
green roofs.
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