|
   
Back to
the green roof project page
Vancouver Island University -
Gathering Place (VIU-GP)
The VIU-GP green roof was designed by Laura-Jean Kelly, faculty
member in the Paine Horticultural Center at VIU, and
installed by Paradise City landscaping. It is approximately
3000 sqft in area.
A primary climate station (pictures top and bottom left) is measuring local microclimatic
conditions at half-hourly intervals, i.e. precipitation, wind
speed and direction, air temperature and humidity, soil
temperature, photosynthetically active radiation and incoming solar radiation.
Secondary climate stations installed just above plots of conventional
roof structure (bare roof) and planted surface measure the impact of the
soil and vegetation on reflected solar radiation (albedo),
air temperature and humidity as well as emitted long-wave
radiation.
A net radiometer is used with concomitant
measurements of the soil heat flux with flux plates to quantify the energy
balance of the roof. A water level meter located in a tank
that collects the roof`s runoff water is used to quantify
the water balance of the roof and to resolve for
the evapotranspiration and the latent heat flux contributions to the
energy balance.
A fully automated CO2 gas exchange system supplied with six
transparent acrylic chambers (pictures middle and bottom
right) is used concomitantly
with the climate stations to measure, also at half-hourly intervals,
the net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) between the planted surfaces and the
atmosphere, i.e. the balance between plant photosynthesis
and respiration, as well as
microbial decomposition. This is achieved for individual plant species
and for soil only.
The roof is also equipped with an automated digital camera
(picture bottom left) that captures daily pictures of the roof
to monitor the phenological development of vegetation over time,
i.e. increases in plant biomass and flowering patterns
(picture top right).
Video of the vegetation
development and flowering patterns on the roof
The roof is also visited monthly by undergraduate students
at VIU with a portable CO2 gas exchange system to assess the spatial variability of
NEE across the roof.
Top
Ý
|
