Introducing green infrastructure into the built environment of Adelaide

Abstract

Adelaide is the capital city of the driest state in Australia and it currently faces three major<br><br>challenges, namely urbanisation growth, water scarcity and climate change. The<br><br>consequence of these threats puts more stress on the urban water cycle and increases<br><br>metropolitan temperatures through urban heat island effects. Introducing green infrastructure<br><br>through water sensitive urban design is one of the solutions to reduce the harmful impacts of<br><br>urbanisation while providing additional amenity and water quality benefits for communities<br><br>and the environment.<br><br>This paper describes the results of a current research project that is investigating the water<br><br>quantity and thermal benefits of two different types of green roofs, namely intensive and<br><br>extensive. The study site consists of a series of small scale green roofs located at the<br><br>University of South Australia’s Mawson Lakes campus. Laboratory and field investigations of<br><br>rainfall and runoff confirm that green roofs can retain significant amounts of stormwater and<br><br>can also mitigate the peak flow and attenuate the time of concentration. The thermal benefits<br><br>of green roofs have also been investigated through two scenarios of cold and warm days.<br><br>The outcomes indicate that the thermal variation of the media is less than surrounding areas<br><br>and on cold days the media’s temperature is warmer than outside and on warm days it is<br><br>cooler. Integrating green roofs into the built environments of Adelaide could work as a<br><br>climate change adaption tool that could yield significant thermal benefits.