AR03 - GREEN INFRASTRUCTURES

Research Area

Pagine collegate

Descrizione attività di ricerca

A new paradigm in the way of managing stormwater in urban settlements and design urban drainage systems is urgently needed in order to make cities more adaptive to urbanization and climate changes. Through the implementation of several Natural Based Solutions, such as bioretention and rainfall harvesting systems, rain barrels, wet and dry ponds, green roofs, porous pavements and permeable patios, it is possible to mitigate climate change and urbanization impacts by implementing small-scale hydrologic controls for infiltrating, filtering, evaporating, and detaining stormwater close to the source point. The quantitative assessment of all the potential benefits related to the use of such NBSs in urban areas, with special emphasis on their hydraulic effectiveness, is becoming a strategical priority for the scientific community and policy makers. The HYCLIC- LAB has an experimental multilayer green roof installed in 2019 on the roof of the Department of Engineering of the University of Palermo (Italy). The system is the Polder Roof realized by the Metro-Polder Company (https://metropolder.com/polder-roof/#polderroof), which is currently one of the most technologically advanced blue-green roof on the market. The prototypal system covers a roof area of almost 35 square meters. The green layer is made of two zones with different soil thickness composed by a substrate of volcanic materials with a mixture of Mediterranean plants. The blue layer is equipped with a weir that can be remotely controlled to regulate discharge outflow and water storage. A complex network of sensors monitors the system and an equal size gray roof area bordering the system, with respect to several atmospheric variables, water levels in the blue layer, the discharge outflow from the system and the temperatures at different points in both upper and lower surfaces of both blue-green and gray roofs. The HYCLIC- LAB is also involved in a monitoring activity (SMART PARKING) for the evaluation of the hydrological performances of different materials used for porous pavements. In particular, two parking areas within the Campus of the University of Palermo (Italy), are currently monitoring in terms of produced surface runoff.