Evaluation of Green Roofs Evolution Impact on Substrate Soil Water Content by FDR Sensors Calibration

Evaluation of Green Roofs Evolution Impact on Substrate Soil Water Content by FDR Sensors Calibration

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Green roofs performance is strongly impacted by climatic conditions, design parameters and aging.In particular, the evolution in time of physical and chemical properties may lead to substantial changes in their retention and detention capacity.The growth of the roots, above all, seems to affect the interpretation of the soil water content, a click here key parameter for GRs retention performance.Generally, Frequency Domain Reflectometry sensors are used in the assessment of the volumetric water content of the soil but they require a calibration procedure in order to obtain reliable measurements.

In this study, changes in Frequency Domain Reflectometry sensors calibration caused by the presence of root system were investigated.For this purpose, two substrate soil samples have been collected from an experimental Green Roofs located within the University of Salerno: the first, mainly consisting of peat, during the construction phase and the second, consisting of peat with a developed root system, two years later.Frequency Domain Reflectometry sensor measurements were plotted against observed volumetric water content to obtain calibration curves.Results show that the sensors seem not to be able to predict the water adsorbed by the root system, read more confirming the hypothesis that Green Roofs evolution can have an important impact on substrate volumetric water content observation.