Blue Roof Green Infrastructure

Blue green roofs help to cool the environment increase roofing materials lifespan and at the same time reduce the heat influx in to the building reducing air conditioning demand.

Blue roof green infrastructure.

A good example of a green blue infrastructure green roof possman cider factory google maps screen grab. By providing source control for water which would otherwise run off to downstream attenuation systems or sewers we are able to capture treat and store water primarily through infiltration to be used for the purpose of irrigation to areas of vegetation. Woodville square case study. An exciting new technology to control rooftop runoff is known as blue roofs.

In recent years green infrastructure has evolved to mean blue green infrastructure where blue infrastructure pertains to systems and technologies that are retrofitted into existing urban drainage infrastructure to improve water efficiency and expand a city s capacity to manage stormwater and flooding. It can refer to landscape elements on various spatial scale levels. Of course the blue roof doesn t provide the multi benefit that green roofs do such as energy use reduction habitat aesthetic life cycle roof cost but 2008 modeling conducted by douglas beyerlein pe. One of the most interesting green roofs installed in the world is at the possman cider factory in frankfurt.

Blue green roofs the polypipe blue green roof system can be installed to provide areas of living vegetation at roof level. Grey infrastructure for housing businessess road infrastructure. On blue roofs stormwater is detained and then slowly released over time through the. Blue roofs also don t have the same maintenance costs of green roof either they basically require the same maintenance as a conventional roof.

Creating blue green roofs you can access or gaze upon increases the real estate value of the space. Over the next several years new york city alone will spend several billion dollars on green infrastructure solutions to address its storm water control problem and blue roofs will be a key part of these efforts. Combining the technologies can increase the overall benefits of greening roof scapes. Therefore it is not a case of green or blue infrastructure but a blending of the both.

In the context of an urbanised environment green and blue infrastructure is to be understood as all natural and semi natural landscape elements that could form a green blue network. Blue green infrastructure is a method to work with local ecology. Designing from the regional scale right down to individual species. Dominates in urban and peri urban landscapes in flanders.

For a blue roof while estimates for an extensive green roof might be 18 25 s f. The estimates i found ranged from 1 s f. Wyke beck flood scheme case study. Blue roof technology however aims to increase both the volume of water stored and control the amount of water released.

Have a look at our case studies for specific examples.