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CHAPTER x
Hartini Kasmin*, Sitinurr Hidayu Baharuddin, Ahmad Afdhal Abd Aziz and Nur Durrah Sharif
Abstract
Green roof is a technology of incorporation plants with build environment. Green roof or
vegetated roof is a roof which is partially or completely covered with vegetation and soil or
growing medium. Evapotranspiration (ET) is one of a key parameter that influences the
stormwater retention capacity, and thus the hydrological performance of green roofs. This
paper investigates on how the moisture content in extensive green roofs varies during dry
periods due to evapotranspiration performance for a proposed green roof system using
different types of vegetation. The ET experiments were done in 2014, 2015 and 2016,
separately using three types of vegetation; Wedelia Tilobata, Portulaca sp, and Arachis Pintoi.
However, due to limited supply, Arachis Pintoi was substituted into Japanese Grass in 2016.
In each experiment, four different test beds were used; three test beds for three vegetation
and the other one was used as a control with substrate layer only. The weight of test beds
were measured and recorded daily. Changed in weight mass represents the water loss by ET
for vegetated roofs and evaporation (E) for the non-vegetated roof. It was observed that from
three series of ET experiments; after 5 days, Wedilia Tilobata test bed has shown better water
reduction than Portulaca sp. However, the percentage of reduction quite varies between
experiment in 2014 and 2015 although the temperature quite similar between 28˚C and 32˚C.
This may due to the system of drainage constructed for the green roof setup, the density of
the root and vegetation growth and the influence of other climatic condition such as wind and
radiation of the surrounding. The performance of Arachis Pintoi also quite varies between
these experiments, however, the performance of water reduction for Arachis Pintoi seems
better than Portulaca sp within the similar temperature; but the water losses of Japanese
Grass test bed in 2016 displayed the lowest between these other three vegetation. Still, when
compared to the non-vegetated roof, all four vegetation exhibited higher water loss, but
Japanese Grass test bed start to lose more than the non-vegetated after ten days of dry days,
or else it seems simulating the non-vegetated performance. It can be concluded that the
understanding on how the rate of evapotranspiration will differ between different types of
drought tolerance vegetation to local weather, would greatly benefit in developing a more
effective green roof structure.
1. Introduction
Green roofs have several positive effects in the urban setting with the most important ones
being their ability to retain and detain storm water (Villarreal & Bengtsson, 2005), reduce urban heat
islands (Wong et al., 2003), reduce building energy consumption by cooling roofs during summer
months (Barrio & Palomo, 1998), and create habitats for certain plants and animals and thereby
improve urban biodiversity (Emilsson et al., 2007).
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Green roof is defined as a roof that supports vegetation (Werthmann, 2007). It is also known
as eco roof, living roof, planted roof or vegetated roof which uses plants to improve roof performance
and appearance (Snodgrass et al., 2010). Green roof is also referred to as roof garden in some
places (Dunnett & Kingsbury, 2004). This kind of roof can be divided into two types which are
intensive and extensive green roofs. An intensive green roof requires deeper substrates which is at
least 15 cm (6 inches) deep and generally known as a roof garden while extensive green roofs require
shallow substrates of between 2 cm to 15 cm (0.8 to 6 inches). Intensive green roofs are usually
accessible to the public and require regular maintenance while extensive green roofs are normally
inaccessible to the public and require minimal maintenance (Dunnett & Kingsbury, 2004).
Green roofs could give many environmental benefits to the buildings and occupants including
improving thermal performance of buildings by providing large surfaces with vegetation
(Eomorfopoulou & Aravantinos, 1998). In 2001, (Niachou et al., 2001) published the results of a study
on indoor and outdoor microclimate before and after the installation of a green roof on a building
which concluded that the indoor temperature values in the building with green roof are lower during
the day. The results show that the surface temperature of a non-insulated building without green roof
vary from 42 ℃ to 48 ℃ while the surface temperature of a green roof on non-insulated building are
lower and ranging from 28 ℃ to 40 ℃ . The incidence of the large temperature differences was due
to the installation of a green roof and this could contribute to energy saving potential.
The amount of water that is stored in a green roof, and then evapotranspired into the
atmosphere, is dependent on the depth and type of growing medium, type of drainage layer,
vegetation used and regional weather but this study will focus on the types of vegetation only. Despite
constraints such as high capital and maintenance costs, green roofs have received increased
attention in view of their beneficial impacts. From the storm water management aspect, green roofs
can play an important role in modern urban drainage because of their ability to slow down and reduce
runoff volume. High evapotranspiration from a green roof can reduce the annual runoff to less than
half the precipitation (Liesecke, 1998; Knoll, 2000; Bengtsson et al., 2005).
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Transpiration is the process by which water moves through plants and evaporates through leaf
stomata which are small openings in the leaves. It is the process by which soil moisture taken up by
vegetation is eventually evaporated as it exists at plant pores. Transpiration rate is also influenced by
crop characteristics, environmental aspects and cultivation practices. Different kinds of plants may
have different transpiration rates. Not only the type of crop, but also the crop development,
environment and management should be considered when assessing transpiration.
Evapotranspiration (ET) is a term used to describe the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration
from the earth’s land surface to atmosphere. Evaporation occurs when unsaturated air comes in
contact with a wet surface (e.g., lakes, rivers, wet soil). Transpiration is evaporation of water from
plant leaves as it moves from the soil through plants and out through their leaves to the air. Plants
consume large amounts of water during growth. Meteorological processes near the ground control
evaporation and transpiration. Transpiration is also regulated by the physiology of plants. When plants
cover a small portion of the surface, evaporation is the dominant flux. Transpiration becomes more
important as plant cover increases. However, it is difficult to distinguish evaporation from transpiration,
and the two terms are often combined into evapotranspiration. Water lost from leaves during
transpiration must be replenished from the soil (Bonan, 2002).
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channels or storm sewers (Wong & Chen, 1989), the response of an urban catchment to rainfall is
much faster than the response of a rural area with comparable geophysical characteristics such as
area and slope (Bedient, 2008). Next to this decrease in lag time between rainfall peak and discharge
peak, urban development also increases the runoff volume and runoff peak. The combined effects of
urbanization on the rainfall-runoff increases the exposure to the hazard of flooding (Mansell, 2003)
and erosion.
Urbanization produces numerous changes in the natural environment. It is predicted to rise
from 75% of people in developed countries in 2000 to 83% in 2030, while over the same period it will
rise from 40% to 56% in less developed countries (Cohen, 2003). Numerous factors influence the
amount of runoff but an indicative finding from (Rose & Peters, 2001) is that peak flows are from 30%
to more than 100% greater in urbanized catchments compared to the less urbanized and non-
urbanized catchments. In addition, in accordance with Manning’s equation which indicates that the
velocity of flow of water is indirectly proportional to the roughness of the land surface (Leopold et al.,
1995), stormwater flows more rapidly across smooth urban surfaces than across rough natural
surfaces.
When raining in urban area, the rainwater cannot seek into the ground and cause immediate
runoff in a high velocity because the imperviousness in urban system varies with lot size of residential
areas (Leopold, 1968), like the open surface like parking lots, roof tops and pavement are
impermeable. Therefore, water will not take time to fill up the streams. High discharge occur rapidly
and the lag time of the stream also will be shorted. This causes urban streams and catchments to be
more "flashy", where large flow events occur more frequently with faster ascending and descending
rates in the hydrograph (Walsh et al., 2005). Therefore, urban areas are more prone to flooding
compare to the rural area.
Figure 1.3 shows the difference between hydrological cycle in a natural and urban catchment
area. The percentage values indicate qualitative differences in the size of annual water volumes
through each pathway. Water that falls on the catchment area and is not evaporate or transpired may
reach the stream by three possible paths: overland flow/ runoff (almost all of which is transmitted to
the stream by storm water pipes in the urban catchment), subsurface flow through permeable topsoil/
shallow infiltration, or percolation into groundwater flow/ deep infiltration (Walsh et al., 2005).
Figure 1.3: The percentage of hydrological cycle in a natural catchment and in an urbanized
catchment (MMSD, 2016)
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Urban catchments have a complicated water cycle involving water supply, wastewater
disposal and stormwater drainage. High quality water is harvested from catchments often some
distance away from urban areas, treated and delivered to meet domestic and industrial water
demands. Wastewater generated from urban areas is conveyed to regional wastewater treatment
facilities and then discharged to the environment (for example, to rivers or bays). Stormwater
generated from urban areas is often conveyed efficiently to designate trunk stormwater drainage
systems to reduce stormwater ponding and flooding (Lloyd et al., 2002).
Green roofs (vegetated roof surfaces) are increasingly seen in cities because they are an
important strategy that addresses some key urban environmental issues. Green roofs can reduce
surface water runoff, provide a habitat for wildlife, moderate the urban heat island effect, improve
building insulation and energy efficiency, improve the air quality, create aesthetic and amenity value,
provide opportunities for urban food production and preserve the roof’s waterproofing (English Nature,
2003; Dunnett and Kingsbury, 2004).
Urban environments are characterized by impermeable surfaces which result in flash floods,
erosion and pollutant loading to surface waters (Jennings and Jarnagin, 2002). The substitution of
vegetated roofs for conventional roofs has the potential to reduce roof runoff by 100% in some cases
(Oberndorfer et al., 2007), with regional reductions of up to 2.7% predicted in a scenario of 10% green
roof coverage (Mentens et al., 2006). Some studies show that the reduction in runoff from green roofs
is largely attributable to the thickness of the substrate or slope of the roof as opposed to any direct
effect of the vegetation (Van Woert et al., 2005; Getter et al., 2007), but plant uptake and transpiration
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should increase the ability of a roof to hold water from repeated rain events (Villarreal & Bengtsson,
2005). Maximizing transpiration from the roof may thus increase the total amount of water prevented
from running off into the sewer system.
(a) (b)
Figure 2.1: Diagram of (a) non-vegetated roof bed; (b) vegetated roof bed with Arachis Pintoi;
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Difference in water uptake has direct relationship towards differences in stormwater runoff
reduction. Therefore, significantly affecting the ability for the substrate to absorb and retain more
water during a rainfall event. An experiment done by (Berghahe, 2007) showed evapotranspiration
rate difference between plants characteristic could be up to 40% (Krishnan et al., 2014).
Tropical climate country like Malaysia would definitely benefited from this study as stormwater
event runoff is a common phenomenon that has been continuously causing mass destruction recently.
For this study, 4 types of drought tolerance vegetation namely Wedelia Trilobata, Portulaca Sp,
Arachis Pintoi and Japanese grass were selected. These four species were selected based on their
high survival characteristic which can cope with the tropical climate of Malaysia and be easily
maintained.
2.2.2 Portulaca Sp
Also known as Moss Rose, Rose Moss, Portulaca grandiflora. It comprises of about 40-100
species and commonly found in the tropics and warm temperate regions. The botanical name is
derived from the Latin Potare, meaning to “carry,” and Lac or “milk”, referring to the milky sap of the
plant (Hocking, 1997). Portulaca (Portulaca spp.) is a non-fussy plant and valued for its attractive
foliage and brilliant flowers. They have been used as a folk medicine in many countries for skin
rashes, inflammation, ulcers, abdominal complaints, detoxification, cough and urinary discharge
(Krittikar et al., 2001, Grieve 1999, Grubben, 2004).
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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5
0 0
Non-
vegetated
-10 Portulaca -10
Soil moisture deficits (mm)
-30 -30
Non-vegetated
-40 -40
Portulaca Sp
-50 -50 Wedilia Trilobata
Arachis Pintoi
-60 -60
Time (days) Time (days)
(a) (b)
Figure 3.1: The soil moisture deficits of five roof treatment types (a) for 6 days in 2014; (b) for 5 days
in 2015;
4. Conclusions
This study has demonstrated that Wedelia Trilobata, Arachis Pintoi, and Japanese Grass are the
drought-resistant vegetation types and had shown that they could retained stormwater. After storing
water until it reached maximum capacity holding for the soil mixture, the water will loss through
evapotranspiration for vegetated soil and through evaporation for the non-vegetated soil depending on
the climatic condition of the surrounding area. Based on the performance of vegetated roof bed, the
four vegetation had significantly performed the ET process.
1. The ET experiment can be started after all vegetation have fully growth in adequate and uniform
amounts.
2. Additional meteorological parameter such as relative humidity and wind should be measured and
observed for more accuracy ET data.
3. Different soil mixture can be used in future research in order to compare the results. Soil mixture
must able to contain high WCmax and high nutrient to provide for the vegetation. In this study, the
vegetation produces less flowers therefore, different soil mixture may be able to provide different
results.
4. Different method of analyzing moisture index also can be used in determining the Potential ET
rates which is by using Thornthwaite equation; Penman equation.
It can be concluded that the understanding on how the rate of evapotranspiration will differ between
different types of drought tolerance vegetation to local weather, would greatly benefit in developing a
more effective green roof structure.
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