Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / The City of Boston land use has altered the surrounding watersheds through creation of infrastructure, damming, landfill, and expansion of impervious surfaces. The continued growth of the City has historically outstripped the capacity of its combined storm and sanitary sewer system, necessitating discharges into area water bodies. In light of model forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicting precipitation increases it is likely the already strained system will need additional capacity. Boston's tradition of expanding artificial capacity is compared to the City of Curitiba's enhanced natural capacity stormwater management plan. Limitations in both are discussed and the author concludes the City of Boston would benefit from increasing decentralized natural capacity through green rooftechnology. To investigate this claim remote sensing data was analyzed over three neighborhoods. The resulting available green roofing area was then combined with historical climate data to create a retention response model. The extrapolated city-wide model predicted retention of 19%-27% of total building received rainfall from 1983-2009. This model was then correlated with Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) discharge National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System report data. The retention volume was found to accommodate most discharges in the FY2009 as well. Thus, extensive green roof technology presents a supplemental capacity building strategy for the City of Boston to avoid increases in future CSOs.

CO2 is one of the main gases accountable for the increment of the greenhouse effect, of climate changes, and of environmental degradation arising from this ecological unbalance. Civil construction is one of the main sources of CO2 emissions, using construction techniques that are more sustainable can contribute to the reduction of those emissions. Furthermore, the energy content of materials must be taken into account as well due to the fact that the consumption of petroleum by-products increases the CO2 indexes in the atmosphere. It becomes then clear that the less energy is consumed, even those renewable, the less environmental impact there is. Thus, it is indispensable to analyse not only the emissions of CO2 but also the energy content of materials used in three roofing technologies under scrutiny in this research: green roofs, fibre cement, and ceramic tiles. Green roofs are a sustainable alternative to be implemented in covering the top of buildings. This research, therefore, aims to compare the CO2 emission to the energy content of two green roof solutions and of two traditional coverage solutions in the pre-operational phase in the cities of Porto Alegre and Santa Maria, both in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The method used to identify left from the layers and constituents in each green cover, and the raw materials used in traditional roofs, measuring how much material was used for each cover, analyzing all the material traversed by the means of transport, quantifying emissions CO2 and energy consumption of materials by processes fabrication them and finally to compare all results. Common belief is that green roofs have the potential to mitigate environmental damages, especially those caused by the civil construction sector concerning CO2 emissions and energy consumption in the pre-operational phase, just as advantages in the operational phase are described. Such hypothesis was confirmed for the tested cover. However, among the possibilities discussed below for closing the top of buildings, green roofs are the only technology capable of mitigating environmental damage, in particular, the emission of carbon dioxide, and provide an environmental service to the community carbon sequestration to throughout his life . Nonetheless, amongst the building coverage possibilities herein analysed, green roofs are the only technology capable of integrally mitigating environmental damages in a few years, especially the emission of carbon dioxide, and also the only technology capable of providing an environmental service to the collectivity of carbon sequestration to throughout his life. / O CO2 é um dos principais gases responsáveis pelo incremento do efeito estufa, das mudanças climáticas e da degradação ambiental decorrente deste desequilíbrio ecológico. Sendo a construção civil uma das principais responsáveis pela emissão de CO2, o uso de técnicas construtivas mais sustentáveis pode contribuir para a redução dessas emissões. Além disso, o conteúdo energético dos materiais também é importante ser considerado, pois além de incrementar, através de consumo de derivados de petróleo, os índices de CO2 na atmosfera, o menor consumo de energia possível, mesmo as renováveis, representa menores impactos ambientais. Assim sendo, imprescindível analisar não só a emissão de CO2, como também o conteúdo energético dos materiais empregados nas três tecnologias de cobertura objetos de estudo desta pesquisa: coberturas verdes, de fibrocimento e de telhas cerâmicas. As coberturas verdes são uma possibilidade sustentável a ser implementada no fechamento de topo de edificações. A presente pesquisa visa a comparar as emissões de CO2 e o conteúdo energético de duas soluções de cobertura verdes e duas soluções de coberturas tradicionais, na fase pré-operacional, localizadas em Porto Alegre e outra em Santa Maria RS. O método utilizado partiu desde identificar as camadas e elementos constituintes em cada cobertura verde, bem como os insumos utilizados nas coberturas tradicionais, mensurar quanto material foi utilizado para cada cobertura, analisar o percorrido de todos os materiais pelos meios de transportes, quantificar as emissões de CO2 e o consumo energético dos materiais pelos processos de fabricações dos mesmos e finalmente comparar todos os resultados. O senso comum considera que as coberturas verdes têm o potencial de mitigar danos ambientais, especialmente os causados pelo setor da construção civil de emissão de CO2 e de consumo energético na fase pré-operacional, da mesma forma como são descritas as vantagens na fase operacional. Tal hipótese se confirmou para as coberturas avaliadas. Dentre as possibilidades aqui analisadas para fechamento de topo de edificações, as coberturas verdes são a única tecnologia capaz de mitigar os danos ambientais, em especial, a emissão de dióxido de carbono, e fornecer um serviço ambiental à coletividade de sequestro de carbono ao longo de sua vida útil.

The diploma thesis deals with the study of runoff torrential rain on the green roofing. This work is focused the problematics of runoff for various constructions of flat and green roofing. The results were evaluated according to the standard ČSN 75 67 60 - Internal sewerage and the German standart for green roofing FLL.