Rooftop Gardening: A Practical Guide to Improving Urban Food and Nutrition Security

As urban populations grow and space for traditional gardening shrinks, rooftop gardening has emerged as a sustainable solution for urban food security. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or a city dweller looking to grow your own food, rooftop gardens offer a way to utilize unused space while promoting healthier living. Let’s explore the techniques, benefits, and actionable tips for starting your own rooftop garden to improve both your diet and the environment.

Why Rooftop Gardening is Important

Rooftop gardens do more than just beautify your cityscape; they help in cooling buildings, providing fresh produce, and fostering community connections. With urban areas facing issues like limited green spaces and poor access to fresh vegetables, these gardens can supply essential nutrients and contribute to food security for city populations.

Different Techniques for Rooftop Gardening

Rooftop gardening isn’t one-size-fits-all. There are several methods depending on your space, resources, and goals. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Container Gardening

This is the most straightforward method, ideal for beginners. Plants grow in pots filled with soil or other substrates, making it easy to control the environment and manage pests organically. You can grow various crops, from tomatoes to herbs like rosemary and thyme. Container gardens are also great for small spaces since you can move plants around as needed.

2. Hydroponics and Aeroponics

For those looking to step up their gardening game, hydroponic and aeroponic systems offer advanced ways to grow plants without soil. These systems use water-based solutions and air to deliver nutrients directly to plants, resulting in faster growth and higher yields. While they require more setup and maintenance, the results are worth it, especially in areas with limited soil quality.

3. Organic Rooftop Gardening

Following organic gardening principles ensures that your rooftop garden remains chemical-free. Use natural fertilizers like compost, organic seeds, and non-chemical pest control methods to create a healthy, sustainable garden. Managing water efficiently and ensuring proper sanitation are key components of organic rooftop gardening.

Maximizing Productivity and Efficiency

Rooftop gardens can be incredibly productive if managed well. A small 1-square-meter garden can yield a surprising amount of produce, making the most out of limited space. Here’s what you can achieve with just a square meter:

• Lettuce: 36 heads every 60 days
• Tomatoes: 100 units in 180 days
• Potatoes: 10 kilograms in 100 days
• Herbs (like mint): Harvestable every day

Pro Tip: Try mixed cropping, where you grow short-cycle crops like lettuce alongside longer-growing crops like tomatoes. It’s a smart way to get continuous harvests. Perennial herbs can also be planted around the edges for year-round flavor.

Improving Efficiency with Netting and Shelters

Covering your rooftop garden with netting can shield your plants from pests, dust, wind, and bird droppings, while also providing shade. Lightweight shelters using materials like polyethylene can protect against harsh weather and help capture rainwater for irrigation. You can even install photovoltaic panels to power an automated drip irrigation system, reducing your garden’s reliance on city water.

Actionable Tips for Starting Your Rooftop Garden

• Start Small: If you’re new to gardening, begin with easy-to-grow crops like lettuce, herbs, or radishes.
• Choose the Right Containers: Ensure you use containers with proper drainage and enough depth for root growth.
• Invest in Good Soil: Use nutrient-rich soil or organic compost to give your plants a strong start.
• Mix Crops: Plant fast-growing vegetables next to slower-growing ones to maximize your space.
• Protect Your Garden: Use lightweight shelters or nets to keep pests at bay and protect plants from extreme weather.

Advanced Techniques for High Yields

For those who want to get the most out of their rooftop space, innovations like the “cubic garden” system are worth considering. This method allows you to grow vertically, using the airspace above the roof to increase yields. Climbing plants like spinach or hanging herbs can take full advantage of this setup, giving you more crops without needing extra ground space.

Benefits of Rooftop Gardening

Rooftop gardens provide more than just food. They offer social, environmental, and economic benefits, including:

• More yield per square meter of space.
• Reduced water usage thanks to efficient irrigation systems.
• Less dependency on pesticides and fertilizers.
• Lower transportation costs for food, as you’re growing right where you live.
• Reduced food waste by harvesting only what you need.
• Opportunities for income generation through surplus produce.

Conclusion: Rooftop Gardening Summary for Instagram Reels and Infographics

• Rooftop gardens make use of unused space for growing nutritious food.
• Techniques include container gardening, hydroponics, and organic gardening.
• Even small spaces (1 m²) can produce significant yields like 36 heads of lettuce in 60 days.
• Mixed cropping helps maximize space and ensure continuous harvests.
• Innovations like the cubic garden system allow vertical growth.
• Rooftop gardens reduce food waste, improve nutrition, and even help cool down buildings.
• Actionable tips: start small, protect your garden with netting, and mix crops for variety.

By following these steps, you can turn your urban rooftop into a productive oasis, contributing to your health and the environment!

Roof-garden systems offer an excellent opportunity to grow a wide variety of crops that can contribute significantly to nutrition and food security, especially in urban environments with limited space. Here’s a summary of the key points regarding species and cultivars suited for rooftop gardening:

1. Species and Cultivars

• Roof gardens are ideal for cultivating a range of vegetables, fruit crops, root and tuber crops, ornamentals, condiments, and medicinal plants.
• Dwarf plant species and cultivars are particularly useful for rooftop gardens as they take up less space while providing high yields. Examples include dwarf varieties of cauliflower, broad bean, chili pepper, sweet pepper, and snap beans.

2. Common Species for Roof Gardens (Examples from Table 4)

• Leafy Vegetables: Broccoli, cabbage, kale, lettuce, spinach, watercress, and amaranth.
• Fruits and Fruiting Vegetables: Tomato, cucumber, eggplant, sweet pepper, zucchini, and strawberries.
• Medicinal Plants: Aloe vera, artemisia, and camomilla.
• Condiments and Herbs: Basil, parsley, coriander, mint, thyme, and oregano.
• Root and Tuber Vegetables: Carrot, onion, garlic, potato, radish, and sweet potato.
• Fruit Trees: Moringa, peach, olive, mandarin, orange, kiwi, and grape.

3. Nutritional Value

• Vegetables, fruits, and herbs grown in rooftop gardens are rich in micronutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and fiber. This includes high levels of calcium, iron, vitamin A, and vitamin C.
• Rooftop gardening reduces the time between harvest and consumption, preserving more nutrients in the produce compared to conventional supply chains.

4. Health Benefits

• Increasing consumption of fresh, nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits can help prevent diseases like cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and malnutrition.
• According to WHO, the consumption of at least 400 g of fruit and vegetables daily can prevent chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes.

5. Yield Potential

• Rooftop gardens can yield 0.7 to 12 kg of vegetables, fruits, or herbs per square meter per year, significantly boosting urban food supplies.

6. Sustainability and Urban Livability

• Rooftop agriculture can reduce environmental impact, improve city liveability, and make cities more resilient to food crises.
• However, rooftop gardens require initial investments in materials, seeds, and knowledge, as well as continuous inputs and technical skills for sustainable management.

7. Conclusion

Rooftop gardens are a valuable solution for increasing access to nutritious foods, particularly in urban areas. They promote food and nutrition security, improve diet diversity, and support health and sustainability. With the right management and advocacy, they can be an effective tool to combat malnutrition and enhance food resilience in cities.

The abstract and introduction sections you’ve provided highlight the ecological benefits of rooftop agriculture, particularly its role in enhancing biodiversity in urban settings. Rooftop farming can serve as green corridors, connecting fragmented habitats in cities, and it offers a platform for various plant species to thrive. Flowering plants grown alongside vegetables attract pollinators, which play a vital role in sustaining both wild flora and agricultural productivity.

The cultivation practices on rooftops are important in shaping these habitats. For example, planting a mix of flowering herbs and vegetables creates forage opportunities for pollinators like wild bees, which are crucial for the health of urban ecosystems. This also fosters complex trophic webs, drawing predators like spiders and birds, which benefit from the increased availability of insects.

Additionally, rooftops can support local cultivars of vegetables, contributing to agrobiodiversity and the conservation of landraces that are adapted to local climates and cultural traditions. These unique varieties can offer nutritional and sensory benefits that align with urban agriculture’s goals, particularly for self-sustaining urban gardeners.

Overall, rooftop agriculture not only boosts biodiversity by providing habitats for plants and insects but also serves as a valuable tool in creating a greener, more sustainable urban environment. It connects ecosystems, promotes species survival, and offers a way to conserve traditional agricultural practices in modern cities.

The passage discusses the integration of rooftop agriculture with urban biodiversity, emphasizing its ecological, psychological, and educational benefits. It highlights how various wild plant species, commonly associated with the countryside and already adapted to urban conditions, could be ideal for rooftop farming due to their tolerance to water stress. These species not only support sustainable agriculture but also contribute to the urban ecosystem by providing nutraceutical foods.

Key Concepts:

• Psychological and Educational Benefits: Rooftop agriculture can evoke biophilic emotions, especially in children, by reintroducing natural landscapes into grey urban environments. This connection with nature has therapeutic effects, fostering mental well-being and environmental awareness.
• Wildlife Habitat Creation: Rooftops, through thoughtful plant choice and ecological complexity, can provide shelter and foraging sites for various species. Pollinators, such as bees and flies, benefit from flowering plants on rooftops, enhancing biodiversity. Green roofs can also support species such as birds, bats, and invertebrates, creating unique species assemblages in urban areas.
• Urban Beekeeping: Rooftop agriculture can support beekeeping, which contributes to pollination, conservation of honeybee diversity, and the production of honey and wax. Urban beekeeping, as practiced in cities like Melbourne and Chicago, has economic and environmental benefits, serving as a bioindicator of urban environmental quality.
• Ecological and Psychological Value: Rooftop farms enhance urban biodiversity, providing essential ecosystem services such as food production, pollination, habitat creation, and psychological well-being. The biodiversity on rooftops can transform cities into green and hospitable environments, reconnecting humans with nature.

In conclusion, agro-roofs represent a multifaceted opportunity to improve urban habitats, enhance biodiversity, and offer psychological benefits, making cities more sustainable and livable.

Summary of “City Resilience to Climate Change” by Teodoro Georgiadis, Ana Iglesias, and Pedro Iglesias

The chapter focuses on how cities can become resilient to climate change, particularly through strategies that enhance population well-being. Using methodologies that include the physiological equivalent temperature (PET), the chapter outlines future climate scenarios and emphasizes the significance of adopting green infrastructures like rooftop farming and urban greenery to mitigate climate impacts.

Key Points:

1. Resilient Cities:
   • Cities are likened to complex organisms where various interdependent systems interact, including transport, energy, and infrastructure. Disruptions in one system can affect the entire city, especially as urban populations grow.
   • Urbanization, an unstoppable global trend, demands resilient solutions for managing essential functions like transportation, energy, and health.
   • A holistic, interdisciplinary approach is necessary to integrate knowledge from architecture, engineering, meteorology, economics, and social sciences to develop resilient cities.
2. Climate Impact and Vulnerability:
   • Extreme heat and the urban heat island (UHI) effect worsen during heatwaves, posing serious health risks, especially to vulnerable populations like the elderly. Excessive heat events are linked to high mortality and increased hospital admissions.
   • The combination of UHI and air pollution during stagnant weather conditions exacerbates the health risks, affecting not only humans but also biodiversity.
3. Mitigation Strategies:
   • Key strategies include cool roofs, urban greenery, de-sealing surfaces, and sustainable drainage systems.
   • Urban greenery (public/private green spaces, green roofs, rooftop farming) is highlighted as a cost-effective and distributed solution for cooling cities, improving air quality, and supporting urban biodiversity.
   • Modeling tools like ENVI-Met and PET are used to simulate and optimize urban environments for better adaptation and resilience.
4. Urban Green Infrastructures:
   • Green spaces and rooftop farms not only reduce the UHI effect but also have co-benefits such as noise reduction, aesthetic improvements, and social cohesion.
   • While rooftop farms are less effective in large-scale climate mitigation than ground-level farms, they still play a vital role in food security, especially in dense cities.
5. Conclusion:
   • Resilience strategies should be self-regenerative, decentralized, and adaptable. By focusing on green infrastructures, cities can enhance their capacity to adapt to climate challenges while promoting social equity and well-being.

This chapter stresses the importance of sustainable urban planning, encouraging green infrastructure policies as essential to improving city resilience to climate change.

This excerpt from the work of Esther Sanyé-Mengual, Joan Rieradevall, and Juan Ignacio Montero discusses how rooftop agriculture (RA) contributes to resource efficiency, waste avoidance, and environmental preservation in urban settings. RA, particularly when integrated with existing urban structures, can address energy efficiency, water conservation, and environmental challenges like climate change.

Key highlights include:

1. Energy Efficiency:
   • RA reduces the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect by increasing vegetative cover, lowering city temperatures through evapotranspiration and altering solar radiation. The result is improved urban livability and energy savings, especially in warm climates.
   • Integrated Rooftop Greenhouses (i-RTGs) enhance building insulation, reducing energy needs for heating and cooling. They can use the building’s residual heat and CO2, optimizing both food production and building performance.
2. Water Efficiency:
   • Water-efficient techniques, rainwater harvesting, and greywater recovery are essential for minimizing the water footprint of RA. Integrated systems can use these resources to close water cycles, further reducing waste.
3. Environmental Preservation:
   • RA helps address climate change by reducing food miles (the distance food travels from producer to consumer) and associated environmental impacts. This localized food production also improves freshness and reduces supply-chain food waste.
4. Types of Rooftop Agriculture:
   • RA systems vary in terms of environmental benefits based on typology:
     • Integrated Rooftop Greenhouses (i-RTGs): Exchange metabolic flows (energy, water, CO2) with buildings, leading to high resource efficiency.
     • Isolated Rooftop Greenhouses (RTGs): Independent from building systems, requiring more energy to maintain optimal growing conditions.
     • Open-air RA: Unprotected from weather conditions, producing seasonally and contributing to UHI reduction while enhancing building energy efficiency.

This synthesis of the environmental benefits of RA emphasizes how different RA systems can contribute to urban sustainability, from energy savings to minimizing water usage and enhancing food security.

This passage focuses on the benefits of Rooftop Agriculture (RA), particularly in the Mediterranean climate, and highlights the environmental, energy efficiency, and water management advantages. Key points include:

1. Thermal Insulation: Rooftop gardens (green roofs) can reduce surface temperatures in the summer and minimize energy use for cooling, while also providing insulation in winter.
2. Rooftop Greenhouses (RTGs): These structures not only insulate buildings but also integrate with the building’s energy metabolism, reducing heat loss and improving overall energy efficiency. Renewable energy sources and metabolic synergies between greenhouses and buildings contribute to energy savings.
3. Water Efficiency: Techniques like hydroponics and rainwater harvesting significantly reduce water consumption. Greywater recovery is another promising strategy for irrigation, although further research is needed.
4. Climate Change Mitigation: RA reduces food transportation needs, helping to avoid food miles, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste in the supply chain. Local food systems, like Zero-km agriculture, enhance this effect.
5. Food Waste Reduction: RA minimizes food waste by shortening supply chains and producing fresher food that requires less handling and transport.
6. Sustainability and Circular Economy: RA supports the creation of green and circular economies, promoting urban biodiversity, and can be a catalyst for educational and social initiatives.

Further research and pilot projects are essential to fully understand the potential of integrated rooftop greenhouses (i-RTGs) and other innovative technologies, particularly in Mediterranean regions where water scarcity and heat management are key concerns.

Community and Social Justice Aspects of Rooftop Agriculture” by Kathrin Specht, Kristin Reynolds, and Esther Sanyé-Mengual explores the potential community and social justice impacts of rooftop agriculture (RA), primarily in cities of the Global North. It highlights both the benefits and challenges of RA in terms of food security, health, community empowerment, and environmental justice.

Key Points:

• RA as a growing phenomenon: Rooftop agriculture is expanding in cities in North America and Europe, involving diverse typologies, from small-scale micro-gardens to large greenhouses. Examples include beehives and chicken coops in addition to plants, offering a sustainable use of urban space.
• Social and community benefits: RA can enhance community food security, provide educational opportunities, improve health through physical activity, and foster social cohesion. For example, the Via Gandusio community rooftop garden in Bologna fosters social inclusion among residents of diverse cultural backgrounds.
• Health and mental well-being: RA offers mental health benefits such as stress reduction, improved self-confidence, and therapy for trauma survivors. Gardens also provide spaces for physical activity, particularly for vulnerable groups like the elderly.
• Community empowerment: Gardens serve as meeting points for social interaction, building community ties, and offering educational and economic opportunities through skill development.

However, the authors caution that RA is not inherently sustainable or just. Issues such as limited community access, economic inequities, and gentrification must be addressed for RA to realize its potential for social equity. To this end, policy recommendations are provided to ensure that RA projects promote community well-being and social equity.

Designing Green Corridors Network Within Cities: A Case Study in Vienna

Abstract

The notion of green cities is not green enough. There is a necessity to readapt consumption modes and rethink urban spaces to ensure the long-term viability of the built environment. Urban agriculture on roofs could play a great role in this transformation process. The question is: where and under what conditions would rooftop gardens have the most significant and positive influence on our existing urban system? This chapter presents a method using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and parametric modelizations to provide an effective planning strategy for the green corridors network within a city. This interdisciplinary research is based on various parameters: the lead angle of the Viennese rooftops, the existing urban green spaces, and the pollinators’ flight foraging distance. After importing the suitable rooftop surfaces into Grasshopper (algorithmic modeling for Rhinoceros 3D), the model identifies the key surfaces capable of creating a large green corridors network and connecting existing green spaces in Vienna.

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Introduction

Increasing urbanization and the growth of the global population over the last 50 years generate significant challenges for the future. According to Despommier, by the year 2050, the earth’s human population will increase by approximately three billion, with 80% living in urban centers (Despommier, 2010). Global sustainability depends on how urban systems will be managed in the twenty-first century (Ferrão et al., 2013). Developing holistic approaches to urban planning is essential to improving the built environment.

Rooftop gardens provide a broad range of benefits, from enhancing biodiversity in the city to contributing to sustainable processes necessary for food production and improving quality of life (Khandaker, 2004). Focusing on the benefits of intensive greening on rooftops in Vienna, this work examines the existing surface opportunities within the city. The idea is to consider rooftop gardens as a key solution to convert existing roof areas into a contribution for a more sustainable urban structure. This chapter presents an overview of how flat roof landscapes could be planned by identifying their potential connections with existing green spaces and creating optimal networks to link them. The resulting model is fully parametric and can be applied to any city shape to identify which flat roofs are best positioned to enlarge the existing green corridors network of a given urban space.

Theoretical Framework: “The Map Is Not the Territory”

Korzybski famously wrote “The map is not the territory” to express the unfeasibility of an accurate representation of space (Korzybski, 1933). The difficulty of modelization lies in transcribing reality through an unavoidable prism of perception. Creating a city model is a complicated task; it is impossible to include all relevant parameters that make a city what it truly is—a highly complex and dynamic system. Despite these facts, modelization is a medium for planners and scientists to analyze and investigate urban morphologies. Valery poetically observed, “Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable” (Valery, 1942). In other words, the model needs to provide a fair perspective that is accurate enough to be useful. “Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful” (Box et al., 1987).

Keeping in mind these constraints and limits, the present study aims to provide a representation of what cities could offer through intensive greening on rooftops. The strategy consists of integrating isolated spaces into a single model matrix. By considering all horizontal surfaces of the city landscape (from ground floor to rooftops) at the same physical elevation, the model provides an overview of the potential benefits those “extra” urban green areas could deliver. The physical organization of the city connections, such as roads, streets, and underground subways, enables people to circulate within urban spaces. Planning and activating these linkages must be coordinated with social behaviors. The architect and design theorist Alexander noted, “For the human mind, the tree is the easiest vehicle for complex thoughts. But the city is not, cannot, and must not be a tree. The city is a receptacle for life” (Alexander, 1965). The aim is to promote the city’s physical connections in accordance with what “life” needs, rather than dictating organization based on built environments. The way species other than humans perceive and respond to urban landscapes may differ significantly from human perceptions. Hence, how can we shift our vision of city topography to align with pollinator species’ discernments? How could green roofs facilitate pollinator dispersion and promote urban biodiversity? Where are these “other” urban linkages, and how can we plan their physical organization to ensure the long-term security and resilience of urban biodiversity?

Green Corridors Network

In 1960, ecologists McArthur and Wilson developed the theory of insular biogeography, defining “islands” as any habitat area suitable for a particular ecosystem surrounded by unlike ecosystems, such as human land development (MacArthur et al., 1967). The location of green spaces within the urban matrix is crucial for city biodiversity. The two main threats to biodiversity are fragmentation and habitat loss (Wilcove et al., 1998). Biodiversity movements are heavily influenced by landscape connectivity (Schippers et al., 1996), suggesting that strategic green locations can ensure good connectivity of the “islands” and create an effective network for organisms.

In 1984, Merriam presented the concept of landscape connectivity as “the degree to which absolute isolation is prevented by landscape elements that allow organisms to move among patches” (Merriam, 1984). Numerous studies have analyzed the connectivity of green spaces in various cities using graph theory. In 1995, Forman proposed the patch-corridor-matrix model, representing landscapes as mosaics of three entities: patches, corridors, and matrices (Fig. 1). Green corridors are identified as a series of connected green areas within an urban region, usually consisting of patches linked by corridors (Forman, 1995; Forman et al., 1986). The urban landscape is viewed as a network of habitat patches connected by green links. In graph theory, patches are depicted as nodes representing natural habitats in the city (e.g., parks, cemeteries, etc.), while corridors are the linkages that enable biodiversity dispersion between green nodes. In reality, these linkages are not continuous but rather a series of “stepping stones” or patches connecting larger green areas.

To optimize the current patch-corridor-matrix of Vienna, three options could be pursued:

1. Increase the weight and/or attraction potential of the nodes (e.g., enlarging green areas such as parks).
2. Enlarge the network by creating new bridges (or stepping stones) between isolated green nodes.
3. Strengthen node connectivity by multiplying access points to a green node, even if a linkage already exists.

This chapter focuses on the second option, particularly investigating how green patches can connect to allow a higher dispersion potential of pollinators using extra “stepping stones”—the rooftop gardens. This approach reflects on how green roofs can link to the green corridors network and expand the existing urban biological system. This proposal adapts the idea suggested in 2014 research conducted in Bologna, where scientists analyzed the potential impact of a green corridors network connecting all flat rooftops within a specific flight foraging distance (Orsini et al., 2014).

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Study Method

Assumptions

The present model is tailored for anthophilous pollinators, utilizing a specific range of flight foraging distance as a parameter. It is assumed that patches located within 500 m of each other are close enough for pollinator dispersion, representing a suitable distance for most common pollinators, whose flight foraging distances range from 750 to 1500 m (Gathmann et al., 2002).

The hypothetical rooftop gardens are designed to grow food and provide substantial pollen and nectar. Natural barriers such as hills or buildings may hinder insects from flying throughout the city; however, no proof suggests that such barriers would prevent them from reaching high points when hard-to-reach green areas offer ample food. Moreover, numerous beehives are located on rooftops, highlighting the importance of integrating higher surfaces into the green corridors network.

Thanks to Grasshopper modelization, various parameters can be adapted, such as flight foraging distance, size and type of patches, network topology, and corridor width.

Tools

Figure 2 illustrates the combination of digital tools and workflow used in this study, consisting of three stages:

1. Identification of Flat Roofs: Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques, all flat roofs suitable for conversion into rooftop gardens are identified and quantified (roofs with lead angles less than 5 degrees) (ARCGIS, 2014).
2. Implementation of Geoformation Data: The geoformation data is imported into Grasshopper, a graphical algorithm editor integrated with Rhino’s 3D modeling tools. The GIS data is converted into a shapefile to be read in Grasshopper using the Meerkat Plugin (Lowe, 2015). This plugin preserves all attributes of the polygons (shape, address, location, and other information). In this case, polygons represent green areas and flat rooftops.
3. Identification of Rooftop “Hotspots”: Using the Spider Web Plug-In (Schaffranek, 2016), the last step identifies the rooftop “hotspots” based on their potential location within the existing green corridors network. The goal is to visualize the intensive greening potential of city rooftop landscapes.

Preparation of the Data with Geographic GIS Techniques

(ARCGIS): Identifying the Green Spaces in Vienna Vienna, covering 41,487 ha, dedicates 45.5% of its entire surface to green areas. The city is surrounded by a green belt formed by the Viennese Woods, Lainz Game Preserve, Donau-Auen National Park, and other green,

Designing Green Corridors Network in Urban Areas: A Case Study in Vienna

1. Step 1: Green Corridors Network Typology

• Data Input: Utilize Meerkat Plug-In in Grasshopper to model existing green spaces.
• Network Creation: Connect green spaces using Delaunay triangulation, filtering linkages to those within a 500 m flight foraging distance for pollinators.
• Fragmentation Analysis: The existing green space network shows fragmentation, indicating a need for additional connections to enhance pollinator dispersal.
• Network Typology Development: Identify potential connections using the minimum spanning tree (MST) approach with Kruskal’s algorithm, minimizing edge length while connecting all nodes.
• Outcome: Identification of 39 missing links totaling 25.04 km required to complete the network.

2. Step 2: Finding Suitable Bridges

• Roof Filtering: Identify suitable flat rooftops within 500 m of green spaces to act as bridges.
• Data Volume Management: Filtering helps reduce computation time in the next modeling step.
• Results: Of 10,210 roofs, 3,378 are suitable for creating connections.

3. Step 3: Selecting Closest Flat Roofs

• Graph Generation: Use Spider Web Plugin to calculate shortest paths among green space centers.
• Bridges Identification: A total of 81 bridges (25.10 km) identified to complete the green corridor network.
• Final Network Length: The resulting network measures 55.13 km.

Discussion

• Computational Challenges: The large data volume in Grasshopper can slow down processing. Efficient data handling is crucial.
• Interdisciplinary Approach: Utilizing various Grasshopper plugins (Meerkat GIS, Heron, Elk) allows flexibility in modeling and integrates different disciplinary insights.
• Parametric Model: The model’s flexibility enables adaptation for various species and urban geometries, emphasizing the need for collaborative planning strategies.
• Invasive Species Consideration: Improved connectivity could facilitate the movement of pests, requiring management strategies alongside ecological benefits.

Conclusions

• Network Insights: The study highlights existing opportunities for urban biodiversity and the potential to enhance green connectivity through targeted rooftop gardens.
• Practical Applications: Results support urban planning strategies that rebind fragmented landscapes and promote environmental sustainability.
• Future Considerations: The model should consider construction costs and collaborate with various experts to enhance practicality and effectiveness.

Key Findings

• Significant fragmentation exists in the urban green network of Vienna.
• The parametric model can support decision-making for urban roof landscapes, adaptable to different urban geometries.
• The green corridor network is based on a minimum spanning tree, providing flexibility for various ecological parameters.
• Collaboration across disciplines is necessary for a more practical implementation of the model.

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This summary encapsulates the primary steps, findings, and implications of your study on creating green corridors in urban settings, particularly focusing on their role in enhancing biodiversity and ecological connectivity. Let me know if you need further modifications or details!

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