Vertical green walls for noise and temperature reduction – An experimental investigation

Abstract

The abundance of heat-trapping asphalt and concrete, smog, and heat emitted from buildings and vehicles is one of the major reasons for the prevailing high temperature, air and noise pollution in cities. Incorporation of green wall in buildings is considered to be an effective method to reduce temperature and mitigate environmental pollution. This study investigated and compared the performance of two types of climbing green wall (CGW) and paving green wall (PGW) vegetation for temperature and noise reduction. Besides, the biological characteristics of Parthenocissus tricuspidata and Sedum lineare Thunb were also analyzed to substantiate the temperature and noise reduction performance of these plants. The results revealed that, the average temperature reduction by CGW and PGW were 4.9% ± 1.3% and 16.6% ± 7.4%, respectively, under no irrigation condition, and 18.4% ± 9.4% and 23.8% ± 8.7%, respectively, under irrigation condition. The noise reduction by CGW in high (75–80 dB), medium (50–55 dB) and low (30–35 dB) sound pressure level was 12.4, 7.5 and 5.7 dB, respectively, and 15.6, 9.3 and 7.0 dB, respectively, by PGW. The results demonstrated that green wall has an excellent effect on buildings toward temperature and noise pollution reduction.