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Effects of Vegetation on Green Roof Ecosystem Services

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Green Roof Ecosystems

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 223))

Abstract

The ecosystem services green roofs provide are influenced by both the engineered and biotic components of green roof systems. This chapter focuses on how the functioning of green roofs is controlled by plant species and the synthetic vegetation communities created by them. Plant species can differ greatly in their ability to provide services such as roof cooling and stormwater retention. Newer work, emphasizing less-well-characterized benefits such as reduction of heat loss in winter, air pollution mitigation and carbon sequestration (Chap. 2), also shows significant effects of plant species. The species that best perform a particular service differ between services; other research shows performance advantages in combining species or functional groups of plants into communities. Optimizing green roof benefits thus requires close attention to plant properties, and even superficially similar plant groups (e.g. succulents) can show large performance differences among species. Characterizing green roof vegetation by plant traits, such as leaf area, leaf thickness and photosynthetic pathway, could be a useful way to select green roof species, allowing rapid screening of regional floras for potential species. Plant traits are often directly linked to ecosystem processes that provide economically and environmentally valuable services. Consequently a trait-based approach can help elucidate the relationships among the performance of individual species, the role of plant diversity and the ecosystem services provided by green roofs. This should allow the design of purpose-specific green roofs that provide higher levels of ecosystem services.

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Acknowledgements

This chapter has benefited from discussion with Claire Farrell and Kate Lee. NSGW was partially funded by Australian Research Council grants LP0990704 and LP130100731.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Saint Mary’s University, 923 Robie St., B3H 3C3, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jeremy T. Lundholm

  2. School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne, 500 Yarra Blvd, 3121, Richmond, VIC, Australia

    Dr. Nicholas S. G. Williams

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  1. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jeremy T. Lundholm
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Correspondence to Jeremy T. Lundholm .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

    Richard K. Sutton

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Lundholm, J., Williams, N. (2015). Effects of Vegetation on Green Roof Ecosystem Services. In: Sutton, R. (eds) Green Roof Ecosystems. Ecological Studies, vol 223. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14983-7_9

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