Development of Green Roofs on Commercial Centers in Bucharest

1. Coordinator: Lect. dr. Elisabeta Dobrescu and Lect. dr. Claudia Fabian International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Authors names: Radu Bogdan Development of green roofs on the commercial centers in Bucharest

2. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Introduction • Green roofs help to reduce hot island effect • Reduce harmful enviromental effects • Significant decrease pollution levels with the implementation of green roof on urban shopping center • The role of a green roof for shopping center in Bucharest • Creating microclimates, maintaining a constant temperature inside shopping centers • Retention of atmospheric microparticles • Following extensive reserch on commercial in urban and suburban areas we have learned that they have a desity of about 537 sqm of retail space per 1000 inhabitants • It is three and a half times more than the national average • Closely studying this subject we have concluded that, in time, a green roof helps solving everyday problems.

3. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Materials and Methods • Researchers estimate that a green roof of 93 sqm can remove about 18.15 kg of microparticles from air per year. It is important to note that 18.15 kg is the amount of microparticles which emit 15 cars running in a year. (Reducing Urban Heat Islands: Compendium of Strategies October 2008) • Extensive studies show that roof will capture typically between 50% and 100% of rain water according to the amount of growth medium used, the density of vegetation, the intensity of local storm and rain rate. • According to studies in Switzerland and England, green roofs can provide shelter even for rare insects and endangered butterflies. A regional simulation for the region of Toronto for which a coverage of 50% of green roofs was taken as reference showed that the temperature in some areas of the city was reduced even with 2°C (Bass et al. 2002).

4. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Materials and Methods • Research on the effects of implementing a greenroof on commercial areasin Bucharest • Field study accompanied by photos and maps for mapping and analysis • Analysis to implement green roofs on different types of buildings

5. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Materials and Methods • Mapping shopping centers to determine the position and size of their accessibility • Air quality analysis • Analysis of buildings and types of roofs • Analysis for the used plants

6. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Materials and Methods • After analysis the choice of vegetative material it was shown that plants of the Crassulaceae family are the best suited for a green roof for several reasons: • Highly resistant under severe conditions compared to other plants or lawn • It requires no special care compared with other plants as they can grow in 10 cm of substrate • Stores a lot of polluting microparticle from the atmosphere and create microhabitats • They are found in vegetative mats which make their installation very easy and produces a visual effect immediately

7. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Results and discussions • Urban air quality and pollution in Bucharest UDC 63 / Year 2010 UDC 127.76 / Year 2016

8. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Results and discussions • Depending on the type of commercial building structure a different membrane system must be choosen for creating a green roof. • Generally, there are three types of roofs for commercial centers. • Sloping roof inside, outside and flat roof Sloping roof Flat roof Types of roofs

9. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Conclusions and recommendations • Promotion campaign in schools and high schools in Bucharest. • Attraction of NGOs concerned about the quality of life in urban areas and the lack of ecosystem services that lead to health problems. • Social campaign aimed to convince the City Hall/district to grant planning permission for new buildings in the metropolitan area of Bucharest only to those who plan to build a green roof

10. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania Conclusions and recommendations • The project has a positive impact on the natural environment by: • reduction of the heat island effect • storm water retention and purification of rainwater • less power consumption • reduction of CO2 emissions, chemical pollution and noise • reduction of PM10 particles produced by the constructions development which create dust, by the engines, brakes and car tires and by aircraft tires that contact the track • ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation • Implementation of a green roof lead to stimulation of biodiversity (improves/maintains birds and insects habitat). Wherever buildings are constructed, microhabitatele are usually disturbed. The green roof helps reshape them and supports the restoration of their biological cycle. • Green roofs provide an important refuge for microhabitats.

11. International Student Symposium "Hortus Academicus“ March 31, 2017 - Bucharest, Romania References • M. Hostetler, W. Allen and C. Meurk. 2011. Conserving urban biodiversity? Creating green infrastructure is only the first step, Lincoln, New Zealand J. Niemela. 2014 • Ecology of urban green spaces: The way forward in answering major research questions, Univeristy of Helsinki, FinlandF. Steiner. 2014 • Frontiers in urban ecological design and planning research, Austin, United StatesB. Zhang, G. Xie, N. Li and S. Wang. 2015 • Effect of urban green space changes on the role of rainwater runoff reduction in Beijing, ChinaClark, C., P. Adriaens, and F.B. Talbot. 2007 • Green Roof Valuation: A Probabilistic Analysis of Environmental Benefits • Peck, S. and M. Kuhn. 2001. Design Guidelines for Green Roofs. Toronto, Canada • Beattie, D., and R. Bergharge. 2004. Green Roof Media Characteristics: The Basics. In Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities, Portland, Oregon, June 2004 • Scholz-Barth, K. 2001. Green Roofs: Stormwater Management from the Top Down. Environmen- tal Design & Construction