Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
paved areas at the perimeter of the living roofs should sufice. However, ire
codes may require vegetation breaks. Any non-greened areas for walkways or
maintenance staging should be made of pervious material or grated walkways
over greened areas to provide even stormwater drainage over the roof area.
Living roofs are still considered new technology for sustainable development. Meas-
urement of project performance can help to advance the understanding of linkages
between system design and environmental beneits through formal research, or
return on investment, for example through reduced energy demand. Monitoring
also provides opportunity for public or formal education, even for young children,
or municipal agencies to consider new codes or code revisions. This section does
not intend to provide a step-by-step guide for equipment speciication or data col-
lection, but rather offers advice on facilitating monitoring plans.
Future monitoring can be accommodated by several considerations in the
design process:
• Safeaccess,egressandstagingarea.Similarprovisionsforaccessforamain-
tenance crew apply for those collecting data or accessing monitoring infra-
structure (see
Section 4.9
).
• Waterproofpowersupply.Mostdata-logginginstrumentationrequireeither
mains power supply, battery power, or can be run off solar panels. The weight
of solar panels must be considered in the total structural loading.
• Whereenergydemandmitigationisofinterest,sensorsmayneedtobe
placed within the roof deck, thus their arrangement and installation may be
required during building construction.
• Forirrigatedlivingroofs,potableorharvestedwaterdemandrequiresmetering.
• Apermanentlyinstalledleakdetectionsystemmaybeintegratedintheroof
deck, or between the roof deck and waterprooing membrane.
• Wherestormwaterperformanceisofinterest:
• Minimizenumberofdrainagepoints(withoutcompromisingrequirements
of local building code). This reduces the amount of monitoring infrastruc-
ture (as well as access points, and perforations).
• Provideeasilyaccessibledrainagepoints.Floworwaterqualitymonitoring
usually requires water to be collected/concentrated at a given location, and
adequate slope for water to move freely off the roof, but it is not easily
accommodated in a completely vertical drain. In some cases, the easiest
point for stormwater performance monitoring equipment may be at
ground level. In this case, interior drains could provide good security for
equipment from tampering or vandalism, but access is critical.
• Whilenotlimitedtolivingroofs,excellentreferencesforformulatinga
stormwater monitoring plan, data collection and analysis are found in:
Burton and Pitt (2002) and Geosyntec Consultants and Wright Water
Engineers (2009).
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