Experiencias en el monitoreo continuo de techos verdes extensivos

Extensive green roofs are currently being used as a kind of Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS for its acronym in English) in the main Colombian cities, however little research is available to provide information on the hydrologic performance of these systems under climatic conditions of different regions of Colombia. This research, like other similar researches carried out in Western Europe, USA and Australia, focuses on evaluating the ability of rain water retention of extensive green roofs through monitoring of an experimental setup that tries to replicate the main features  of extensive green roofs installed in buildings on a large scale. Although plants are clearly making "green" to a vegetated roof, the contribution of these to the retention of rain water has been little studied, and in some cases has even suggested that much of the rain water retention could be achieved only by the substrate or culture medium. Therefore different modules were implemented with extensive green roof in the city of Bogotá D.C (Colombia) to quantify the rain water retention of different components of the system under real climatic conditions of the Tropical Andes. The different modules were implemented during the period comprehended between April, 2013 and April-2015, measuring with high temporal resolution the main climate variables. Based on the measurements a detailed water balance was obtained from which some findings on the hydrological behavior of the valued hydro system arose.