The Benefits of Green Roofing for Latvian Building Environment

Civil Engineering '13 : 4th International Scientific Conference : Proceedings. Vol.4, Part 2 2013
Patricija Kara, Peteris Pastars

Green roofs serve several purposes for a building, such as absorbing rainwater, providing insulation, creating a habitat for wildlife and helping to lower urban air temperatures and mitigate the heat island effect. The modern trend started when green roofs were developed in Germany in the 1960s, and has since spread to many countries. Today, it is estimated that about 10% of all German roofs have been “greened”. Green roofs are also becoming increasingly popular in the United States, although they are not as common as in Europe; however, one sees more and more architects opting for green roofs as an alternative to large flat roofs. Green or vegetated roof is not so traditional roof type for Latvian building environment. Mainly because of a lot of the ideas that it harms all structure, problems with leaking, problems with hydro isolation, too large weight and a lot of additional maintenance works and costs. And the greatest idea is that this roof type is totally unsuitable for local weather conditions when historically green roofs are widely used in Norway and also in Great Britain where weather conditions are much more harmful for greenery. These ideas mainly are coming from the fear to get into the situation with high risk to maintain the building with green roof and if that is cost approved. In present research is given review on green roofing worldwide and Latvia, different roof systems and described the benefits of green roof implementation.

Keywords
Green roofs, extensive and intensive roofs
Hyperlink
http://llufb.llu.lv/conference/Civil_engineering/2013/partII/Latvia_CivilEngineering2013Vol4Part2.pdf#page=58

Kara, P., Pastars, P. The Benefits of Green Roofing for Latvian Building Environment. In: Civil Engineering '13 : 4th International Scientific Conference : Proceedings. Vol.4, Part 2, Latvia, Jelgava, 16-17 May, 2013. Jelgava: LLU, 2013, pp.56-62. ISSN 2255-7776.

Publication language
English (en)