‘Green’ roofs, dew harvesting & food production….

New technology on show at Brisbane Expo in Feb – sustainability month

Geoff Wilson – a man on a mission – has contacted us about the worldwide Green Roofs for Healthy Cities network and about the Brisbane nonprofit photo Expo for built enviro professionals, Feb 22 -23, 2007.

What is a ‘green roof’?
A green roof system is an extension of the existing roof which involves a high quality water proofing and root repellant system, a drainage system, filter cloth, a lightweight growing medium and plants.

What are the benefits?
Green roofs are used to:

• Provide amenity space for building users — in effect replacing a yard or patio
• Grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers
• Reduce heating (by adding mass and thermal resistance value) and cooling (by evaporative cooling) loads on a building — especially if it is glassed in so as to act as a terrarium and passive solar heat reservoir
• Reduce the urban heat island effect
• Increase roof life span
• Reduce stormwater run off — see water-wise gardening
• Filter pollutants and CO2 out of the air — see living wall
• Filter pollutants and heavy metals out of rainwater
• Increase wildlife habitat in built up areas — see urban wilderness.

A green roof is often a key component of an autonomous building. Steven Peck, founder of the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities network based in Toronto, says:

“In North America, the benefits of green roof technologies are poorly understood and the market remains immature, despite the efforts of several industry leaders. In Europe however, these technologies have become very well established.”

In Oz – Green Roofs for Healthy Australian Cities (GRHAC)
This organisation has begun under the umbrella of the Urban Agriculture Network (UAN)-Western Pacific, a non-government, non-profit organisation that is an offshoot of the Urban Agriculture Network in Washington DC (set up in the mid 1990s under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme). Geoff Wilson is convenor of GRHAC and Australian representative on the World Green Roof Infrastructure Network.

Geoff will be promoting membership of GRHAC among:

• architects
• urban developers
• urban planners and designers
• horticultural contractors
• municipal government
• State and Federal advisers in greenhouse gas and city heat island effect mitigation
• news media in these fields.

Geoff says “I believe that there will be great scope in Australia for collaboration with European and North American companies providing specialized know-how and products.”

He expects Australian innovation to develop green roof technology well suited to world markets, especially in one important aspect of green roofs – food from the roof via hydroponics and aquaponics. He would like to hear from companies wanting to promote their businesses in Australia -and the Western Pacific generally.

In the first Australian urban agriculture & microfarming newsletter (pdf) Geoff, as editor, focusses on:

• Green roofs for all reasons – food from the roof and rain-water harvesting in particular
• Aquaponics – combining aquaculture and hydroponics. Potentially, aquaponics is one of the most important trio of food production technologies for urban agriculture development this century (the others being aquaculture and hydroponics)
• Urban organic waste management – especially the recycling of human food nutrients that currently come from the land to the city to waterways and to the sea, to cause unwanted pollution.

Predictions are that by 2030 the world will have to feed another two billion people – eight billion in all…..a mad and monstrous disaster under high-energy use consumption patterns and our thoughtless mining of soils through industrialised agriculture and forestry, and the mining of oceans through over-fishing….

The reckoning is already visible – climate change by our own actions…What will that change do to traditional cropping and grazing?

• Crop plants we have carefully bred or nurtured for specific climates and territories will no longer be grown so well, if at all;
• pasture or browse plants for grazing will support fewer cattle, sheep, goats or other animals;
• warming of seas is expected to cause wild-catch fisheries to change too – mostly for the worse….

Massive food insecurity is likely to be the biggest single issue facing humankind on a planetary scale…(which is why urban agriculture is going to assume greater importance.”

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A little overwhelming, all of this….but the newsletter is fascinating reading to see what innovative people are thinking of as ‘solutions’, particularly:

You can email Geoff for more info – Geoff@nettworx.info.