A Novel Idea for Improving the Efficiency of Green Walls in Urban Environment (an Innovative Design and Technique)

Behrouz Pirouz,Stefania Anna Palermo,Michele Turco

doi:10.3390/w12123524

Abstract

The advantages of low-impact development approaches, such as green walls in an urban environment, are numerous. These systems can be applied for managing stormwater, saving energy consumption, decreasing noise pollution, improving runoff quality, improving life quality, and so forth. Besides, atmospheric water harvesting methods are considered a nonconventional water source. There are many studies about the analysis and advantages of green walls and atmospheric water harvesting conducted separately. However, the use of a combined system that uses fog harvesting in the irrigation of green walls has received less attention in previous studies, and therefore in this research, the feasibility of a novel green wall platform was investigated. At first, the potential of using green walls and atmospheric water harvesting in different climates was analyzed. Then a new combined system was proposed and explained. The study results determined that atmospheric water harvesting can be applied as a source of irrigation for green facilities, particularly in the dry season and in periods with lower precipitation. In the Mediterranean climate, summer fog harvesting yields 1.4–4.6 L/m2/day, and the water consumption of green walls is about 4–8 L/day/m2. This can improve one issue of green walls in an urban environment, which is irrigation in summer. Furthermore, the novel system would protect plants from severe conditions, improve buildings’ thermal behavior by decreasing direct sunlight, and increase conventional green walls’ efficiency and advantages.

Highlights

Buildings are responsible for about 40% of the total energy consumption in cities, and the impact of greening systems is evident [1,2]
The main aim of the study was to investigate the potential of fog harvesting and water consumption of green walls in different climates and correlated factors
The potential of fog water harvesting methods and green walls in different climates would be determined based on different case studies, and a novel system for improving the efficiency of green walls would be presented with an explanation of its application and advantages

Summary

Introduction

Buildings are responsible for about 40% of the total energy consumption in cities, and the impact of greening systems is evident [1,2]. Greening systems are known as natural cooling systems [3] and have a high potential to reduce energy consumption in buildings [4,5,6]. In the design of these systems, many elements need to be considered [11], mainly including statistical analysis of hydrological parameters [12], hydrological effectiveness [13], flow measurement devices [14], and thermal impacts [15,16]. Reitano [18] analyzed the water conditions in Mediterranean countries. The analysis showed that due to geographical and topographical positions, there are different climate types in the Mediterranean region, and the water conditions and design solutions may be different.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion