Occurrence and Predictions of the Need for Green Roofs in Urbanized Environments
According to many studies, around 70% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. The reason for this is certainly greater access to innovations, technologies, opportunities for training and greater opportunities to find a job. Nevertheless, it will represent a great challenge for urbanized communities in terms of maintaining and improving the quality of life.
The increase of population and built-up area in urban areas has created less comfortable living, a worse quality of life for city residents, and on a highest point it has also influenced climate change and natural disasters. As one of the ways to overcome these problems with which modern society is struggling, green roofs are presented by today’s architecture in finding sustainable solutions for modern construction.
Green roofs are a new construction technology that represents a vegetative layer on the roof.
The basic division of green roofs is on extensive and intensive green roofs. Types of vegetation, substrates and other layers depend on the type of green roof.
On the extensive green roof, light vegetation is formed and it requires minimal maintenance and mainly sedums are planted.
The intensive type of green roof is mostly considered as roof gardens, they are more demanding to build and maintain, but they give a higher effect. Some of the advantages of green roofs are: reducing costs for consumed energy, increasing the value of real estate, reducing the impact of extreme temperature values and urban heat islands, new spaces for rest – relaxation and interaction of residents, improving the quality of life, as well as many other advantages.
Green roofs can be applied to different types of buildings: residential and business buildings, industrial, educational and public buildings, private houses and other types of buildings.
Research so far shows that green roofs could transform cities and help them build long-term sustainability. As one of the main benefits of green roofs is their ability to reduce the influence of temperature values, we believe that Podgorica (which according to unofficial data is the seventh hottest city in Europe) would have multiple benefits from investing in such projects
