The role of green roofs as urban habitats for biodiversity modulated by their design: a review

Abstract

In view of the demographic revolution and the rapid development of urban environments, the installation of green roofs could be a tool to ensure human well-being (e.g., heat island reduction, rainwater management), or to increase urban biodiversity. However, the relationships between biodiversity and green roofs are not yet clear and little research has looked into this. We therefore reviewed studies on the overall biodiversity of green roofs. Our review has shown that there is a lack of knowledge of the biodiversity of green roofs, with recent consideration. We highlighted the importance of green roof contribution, in maintaining urban biodiversity through three lines of research: characterization, modes of use and design. Furthermore, we found that there were very few studies on soil biodiversity on this topic. We concluded that green roof construction guidelines should integrate soil communities into their design and aim to be heterogeneous at roof and landscape level. Future research should focus on the diversification and redundancy of rooftop conditions in the urban matrix. This would increase the area of green habitats and the success of species dispersal in cities.

Residential Rooftop Urban Agriculture: Architectural Design Recommendations

“…Green roofs can be productive or non-productive. They can be installed on flat or sloped roofs [129].…”

“…(3) Green roofs can restore lost green spaces due to large-scale developments in dense urban areas. By installing green roofs, additional vegetated surfaces can be added to cities [87,129,134,148,149]. (4) Green roofs can catch and absorb rainwater and slowly release it to the drainage system; therefore, the intensity and quantity of stormwater runoff can be lessened.…”

Assessing Ecological Gains: A Review of How Arthropods, Bats and Birds Benefit from Green Roofs and Walls

“…The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https:// www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/environments11040076/s1, Table S1: Papers on arthropods, bats and birds used to understand how green roofs and walls can contribute to urban biodiversity. References [18,19,21,22,[24][25][26][27][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] are cited in the Supplementary Materials.…”

“…Although previous review papers have analyzed the evolution in the number of studies examining the potential of these infrastructures to benefit biodiversity [20][21][22], the present work provides a systematic and updated review on qualitative and quantitative research evidence on the worldwide use of green roofs and green walls by three taxonomic groups: arthropods, bats, and birds. These taxonomic groups were chosen due to their ability to freely inhabit green roofs and walls, their relative conspicuousness, and their provision of important services in urban areas, such as pollination and pest control [23].…”

Green roof development knowledge map: A review of visual analysis using CiteSpace and VOSviewer

“…Three categories of green roofs are often used: dense, semi-dense, and huge green roofs [ 1 ]. Green roofs are commonly thought to be advantageous in terms of water storage, precipitation, and flood mitigation potential [ [4] , [5] , [6] ], improving urban biodiversity [ 7 , 8 ], building energy efficiency [ 9 , 10 ], mitigating urban heat island effect [ 11 , 12 ], reducing air pollution [ 13 , 14 ], and public health [ 15 , 16 ].…”