Preliminary Stormwater Runoff from an Extensive Green Roof: Modeling and Measurements

This study presents a preliminary assessment of the extensive green roof installed on the Onondaga County Convention Center in Syracuse, New York. A one-dimensional infiltration model, HYDRUS-1D, is employed to simulate the hydrologic behavior of the green roof and compare modeled results with observed runoff data. Initial findings show that HYDRUS-1D performs well in predicting the timing of peak drainage intensity. However, there are discrepancies between the total volumes of modeled and measured runoff. These differences probably result largely from assumptions regarding properties of the engineered soil. Future work will focus on determining accurate soil characteristics to improve the model’s predictive performance.