Proposal of a conceptual model as tool for the hydraulic design of vegetated roof

Vegetated roof technique is becoming increasingly popular, particularly in highly urbanized areas, among the Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) for urban stormwatermanagement. Several studies [1,2] have shown that vegetated roofs may significantly reducing the runoff volume and hydrograph peaks, as well as slowing the contribution to the urban drainage network. This study proposes a conceptual model to predict the hydraulic behavior of a full-scale physical model of a vegetated roof. The model idealizes the vegetated roof as a system consisting of three individual components in series. A mass balance equation is applied to each block, taking into account the specific physical phenomena occurring in each module [3]. The model is validated using dataset observed from the monitoring campaign carried out on the prototype of a full-scale vegetated roof. This study aims to provide quantitative information about the hydraulic performance of vegetated roofs, and identify the most sensitive parameters for describing the hydraulic behavior. The results show a good ability of the model to fit the measured data.