Green Roofs Clean Stormwater in Florida - 3 Important Issues to Consider about Stormwater and Green Roofs.

ACF's 3 Reasons to Build a Green Roof

Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees.  I ran across this simple but true list of reasons Volumetric Green - Green Roofs and Living Walls - in the Urban Core is a correct approach for cleaning stormwater.

The purpose of a green roof is to provide the benefits of vegetation vertically.

Integrating plants into a roofing system, installed by a licensed roofer accomplishes what the above illustration suggests.

1.  Green Roofs manage stormwater at the source - how much closer to the source can you get?
2.  Green Roofs let plants do the work.  Plants and their root systems possess a combination of efficient processes that remove nitrogen and phosphorous and other nutrients or pollutants from stormwater.  Plants also sequester carbon and provide a steady supply of oxygen back into the atmosphere.  Instead of pumps and gears and filters and motors - keep it simple - use Green Roof Plants to clean stormwater.
3.  Green Roofs are simple and cost-effective.  Imagine a city full of green roofs and the degree to which that city's stormwater has been filtered and cleaned by those plants.  Now imaging the amount of revenue a city could save with reduction in stormwater utility costs and direct costs of clean water rather than polluted, algae filled runoff.

Now is the time for cities and municipalities to take the lead and follow those forward thinking governmental or regulatory entities like Port Orange, Florida - who realize adoption of volumetric green (Green Roofs and Living Walls) building incentives will lead to healthy and prosperous communities.

Atlantis Water Management Vision of a Green City

Happy Green Roofing!

Kevin

3 Most Important Reasons to Build a Green Roof in Florida

There really are lots of good reasons to build a green roof in Florida and across the southeast United States.  The three reasons to build a vegetated roof here in Florida that I use most are:

Reason # 1 to build a green roof in Florida.

You will clean stormwater and help reduce runoff.  Our observations and data recordings have shown that on rainfall events of less that 0.50 inches ( 13 mm ) the plants and soil on the green roof capture and hold the rain - thus reducing the amount of stormwater runoff leaving a site.

Now all roofs reach a saturation point and will begin to discharge rainfall as runoff however since the majority of rainfall events we have here in Florida are less than 0.50 inches ( 13 mm ), then the green roof is capturing most of the rainfall.  This helps keep nutrients and other pollutants out of the stormdrain and out of the river.

Reason # 2 to build a green roof in Florida.

You build the green roof and the wildlife will come.  We have long seen that once a green roof was installed - wildlife, including green and brown anoles (lizards), tree frogs, lady bugs, butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds and other species visit the green roof in mass on a regular basis.

Research shows that many species are dependent of vertical green - or green up off and above the ground for survival - to escape predators.

The reemergence of native wildlife around your green roof will provide many benefits ecologically, not the least importance-wise is - an integrated pest management system.  You will notice a great decrease in fly, roach, termite and other pest populations as the lizards and tree frog population numbers grow.

Reason # 3 to build a green roof in Florida.

They are beautiful, provide oxygen to a hot city, take up and sequester carbon dioxide and give us humans a sense of place - a sense of belonging - in an otherwise hot urban concrete or asphalt setting.

So there you have it!  Three most important reasons to build a green roof in Florida.

Happy Green Roofing!
Kevin