Hydrology (Feb 2025)

Continuous Simulations for Predicting Green Roof Hydrologic Performance for Future Climate Scenarios

  • Komal Jabeen,
  • Giovanna Grossi,
  • Michele Turco,
  • Arianna Dada,
  • Stefania A. Palermo,
  • Behrouz Pirouz,
  • Patrizia Piro,
  • Ilaria Gnecco,
  • Anna Palla

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology12020041
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 2
p. 41

Abstract

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Urban green spaces, including green roofs (GRs), are vital infrastructure for climate resilience, retaining water in city landscapes and supporting ecohydrological processes. Quantifying the hydrologic performance of GRs in the urban environment for future climate scenarios is the original contribution of this research developed within the URCA! project. For this purpose, a continuous modelling approach is undertaken to evaluate the hydrological performance of GRs expressed by means of the runoff volume and peak flow reduction at the event scale for long data series (at least 20 years). To investigate the prediction of GRs performance in future climates, a simple methodological approach is proposed, using monthly projection factors for the definition of future rainfall and temperature time series, and transferring the system parametrization of the current model to the future one. The proposed approach is tested for experimental GR sites in Genoa and Rende, located in Northern and Southern Italy, respectively. Referring to both the Genoa and Rende experimental sites, simulation results are analysed to demonstrate how the GR performance varies with respect to rainfall event characteristics, including total depth, maximum rainfall intensity and ADWP for current and future scenarios.

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