Case Study of a Green Roof in Islamabad
Abstract
With the increase in environmental degradation globally, people are beginning to shift towards resources and strategies such as green roofs to reduce the environmental footprint and upgrade the living environment. Green roofs provide for aesthetically pleasant environments and habitat for variety of plants, insects and birds. They are most suited to reducing indoor cooling and heating for thermal comfort in buildings. Green roofs also help to improve air quality especially in populated urban areas. One of the metropolitan areas of Pakistan, like twin cities of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, has a combined population of 5.1 million (the 3rd largest agglomeration in Pakistan). These cities have mostly concrete buildings, asphalt roads and concrete paving in their built environment, which contribute towards heat island effect and exacerbates worldwide global warming. In particular, Islamabad undergoes a cold winter and a hot and dry/humid summer. There are a myriad of benefits to installing green roofs in the urban area of Islamabad such as, reducing heating and cooling energy and heat island effect, increasing biodiversity and evapotranspiration and improving environmental air quality. This paper explores the case study of a green roof installation in the capital city of Islamabad and determines the feasibility of installing green roofs in this city. Conclusions reached in this research point out that there are far more pros than cons in integrating the tops of buildings with green roofs in the climate of Islamabad, particularly in the dominant warm/hot and dry/humid summers.
Keywords
Green roof, Air quality, Heating and cooling energies, Thermal comfort.