A three year study of green roofs and biodiversity study between 2003 and 2006 has recently been published by Lambert Academic Publishing :
by Dr. G. Kadas
In urban climes, where green space is already limited, green roofs may provide the ideal and in many cases the only habitat for species conservation. Could green roofs provide an opportunity to incorporate biodiversity within the built up environments? This study investigated the biodiversity potential of green roofs in urban environments. The main objective was to collect and quantify invertebrates on green roofs over a three-year study. By quantifying invertebrates it was possible to derive fundamental principles regarding the design of green roofs with the aim of maximizing their biodiversity value.
For livingroofs.org this is an important milestone. Much of the research, articles and work of livingroofs.org has run in tandem with the research undertaken by Dr. G. Kadas. In fact Dr. Kadas was one of the founding members of our organisation. A number of key green roofs in London were installed during the study, including Barclays HQ and the Komodo Dragon House.
The research was originally inspired by an earlier study in Switzerland by Dr. Stepahn Brenneisen. On returning from Basel in Switzerland, Dusty Gedge was confronted by a rather lack lustre community of professionals, who doubted that green roofs could have much impact on ecological communities in and around London. At the same time there was growing concern regarding development on brownfield sites in the Capital and in the Thames Gateway Region and their impact on rare invertebrates associated with such sites.
Dr. Kadas' research began in 2002 as an MSc project at UCL and then moved to RHUL to undertake her PhD. She is still monitoring many of the original sites including the Laban Dance Centre and roofs at Canary Wharf. Furthermore the research continues on a number of green roofs that have been designed using the findings of her research and it is hoped that by 2012 a more complete and rounded picture of how invertebrates conservation and ecology works at the green roof level.
In the very near future new Guidance on Green roofs and Invertebrate Biodiversity will be published - this work is a collaboration between Livingroofs.org and Buglife - The Invertebrate Charity.
We at Livingroofs.org know that Dr. Kadas' new book will certainly become a seminal one for green roof researchers throughout the world especially in this the UN's Decade of Biodiversity
