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This intervention pictures a gradual transformation of the roofs of private buildings, first by modifying the reflectance of flat surfaces and then by turning them into
green roofs. A real expansion of green roofs can only occur if our cities will understand and assess their value in terms of the services that they can offer to the community: mitigation of the heat island effect, lamination of rainwater, improvement
of air quality, and last but not least, recreational use.
This final scenario is not meant to offer a new utopian vision of what a city
should be like, but it is rather an attempt to propose the application of solutions that
would adapt the current state of affairs to a no longer so remote future of rapid climate changes.
To increase concretely the resilience of our urban system to climate changes,
such as in the case of heat island mitigation demonstrated by this project, we must
utilize several approaches: in-depth climate evolution studies on the regional and
local scale, the use of climate modeling, the use of new technologies as a support for
urban planning, the research of new building materials, the revision of the urban
governance system, and above all the creation of a new strategy to review and harmonize all the aspects of the matter (Fig. 8.15).
Fig. 8.15 Intervention 6 + summary of intervention 6. Green roofs: extra scenario intervention
8 Mitigation of and Adaptation to UHI Phenomena: The Padua Case Study
This intervention pictures a gradual transformation of the roofs of private buildings, first by modifying the reflectance of flat surfaces and then by turning them into
green roofs. A real expansion of green roofs can only occur if our cities will understand and assess their value in terms of the services that they can offer to the community: mitigation of the heat island effect, lamination of rainwater, improvement
of air quality, and last but not least, recreational use.
This final scenario is not meant to offer a new utopian vision of what a city
should be like, but it is rather an attempt to propose the application of solutions that
would adapt the current state of affairs to a no longer so remote future of rapid climate changes.
To increase concretely the resilience of our urban system to climate changes,
such as in the case of heat island mitigation demonstrated by this project, we must
utilize several approaches: in-depth climate evolution studies on the regional and
local scale, the use of climate modeling, the use of new technologies as a support for
urban planning, the research of new building materials, the revision of the urban
governance system, and above all the creation of a new strategy to review and harmonize all the aspects of the matter (Fig. 8.15).
Fig. 8.15 Intervention 6 + summary of intervention 6. Green roofs: extra scenario intervention
8 Mitigation of and Adaptation to UHI Phenomena: The Padua Case Study