Green Roof Strategies for Substrate-based Food Production in Urban Areas
Mikayla Roth, MHS Presentation
Under the direction of Ms. Julieta Sherk
Monday, March 21, 2022 at 10:00am

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 Roth.Abstr.pdf

Abstract: Green roofs are used to introduce green space to cities by growing plants, especially in dense urban areas. They have both function and beauty, and often use space that is otherwise unoccupied. Many cities have vast amounts of roof space, with much belonging to unused and flat roofs. Potential benefits span from economic to environmental impacts. To add even more function to green roofs, fruits and vegetables can be grown on roofs for consumption. Methods of design, potential community engagement, irrigation practices, growing substrate, and other strategies of 15 green roof gardens were examined. For sites where data was available, like in New York City, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software was used to identify some of the local institutions that could impact community-wide benefits from the rooftop farms and gardens. Many trends that were highlighted by the survey were expected, such as almost all rooftops providing additional irrigation and receiving at least 6 hours of sunlight each day. There was also a large variety of plants that were reported to do well, suggesting that rooftop farms and gardens can successfully grow a number of different crops. One unexpected discovery was the common use of rooftop farms and gardens for restaurants and the unique culinary production associated. Overall, the surveyed roofs generally followed very similar designs, with a few distinct aspects that made them unique. In future, more of these food-producing green roofs could further promote locally sourced healthy food within communities. The evidence obtained from the survey results of this study define the strategies and feasibility of urban agricultural practices on green roofs, which improve local food systems and provide a template to design rooftop gardens.