Houston Greenroof

Read more here about this relatively new roof on the Johnson Space Center.  Environmental data being collected  are reported every 1 minute and the average logged every 5 minutes; soil temperature and moisture data (Echo-TM, Decagon Devices, Inc.) are collected on a 15-minute basis along drainage transects on each roof.  Data are transmitted via EM50G nodes every six hours to a cloud server (Decagon Devices, Inc.); data are downloaded and imported from the internet at the University of Maryland in College Park (UMCP). 

Greenroof researchers Portland State University (PSU) and UMCP are analyzing the data from the Texas roof as well as similar data sets from locations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Oregon. A major goal of this work is to determine whether the mechanistic model these researchers developed to predict greenroof performance is robust across different climates. The Houston roof will be an especially interesting case study because of the anticipated high wind speeds there as well as the summer heat. As the researchers work to refine their models, they will be able to make predictions about how things like roof design features and irrigation scheduling can be fine-tuned in order to optimize greenroof benefits associated with stormwater management, energy efficiency, and possibly even wildlife habitat.