Fractal analysis of green roof spatial implementation in European cities

Pierre-Antoine Versini (1) , Auguste Gires (1) , Ioulia Tchiguirinskaia (1) , D Schertzer (1)

1 ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech

To face the consequences of climate change and unsustainable urbanization, green roofs are currently widely implemented in urban environments. Despite their benefits to restore ecosystem services are quite well established at the roof scale, green roofs need to be widely and appropriately distributed to perform efficiently at larger scales. However for now, this scale-factor is not considered to guide and conduct green roof implementation policies. Here we show that a multi-scale analysis based on fractal theory is helpful in providing information for green roof implementation and in assessing the relevance of these policies. We found the fractal dimensions computed for green roofs are sparse, ranging from 0.49 to 1.35 for the nine studied cities, and illustrate some different degrees of progress in urban greening. Our results demonstrate some significant inconsistencies between political ambition and their in situ realization, and the necessity to better take into account the spatial distribution of green roof implementations in order to optimize their performances.

Domains: Hydrology; Environmental Engineering; Meteorology; Environmental and Society

Pierre-Antoine Versini, Auguste Gires, Ioulia Tchiguirinskaia, D Schertzer. Fractal analysis of green roof spatial implementation in European cities. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 2020, 49, ⟨10.1016/j.ufug.2020.126629⟩. ⟨hal-03365224⟩