Application Of Coconut Waste As Green Roof Materials For Stormwater Runoff Control

• Main Author: Nur Atiqah, Dasrul
• Format: Undergraduates Project Papers
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/41021/1/RA21106_DRA2844_THESIS_22231.pdf; http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/41021/

Green roofs are growing more popular across the world due to their environmental, economic, aesthetical value and well-known for their ability to retain rainwater and improve runoff quality. Urbanization is a major problem that causes various environmental problems, especially urban flash floods. There is no denying the fact that impervious areas due to rapid development in cities have caused an increasing volume of stormwater runoff in a short amount of time and led to disastrous urban flash floods. As Malaysia continues to evolve into a more developing country, it is inevitable to undertake deforestation for the sake of economic and future development. Thus, the use of green roofs in Malaysia is limited, and literature on the subject is few. The application of green roof practices has been recognized as a newfound technology to mitigate the leading problem and is established for its purposes to manage stormwater by retaining rainwater and delaying the progression of runoff. An attempt has been made to assess the hydrological performance of green roofs in improving the water quantity of stormwater runoff. An experiment using a rainfall stimulator with a lab-scale prototype in order to analyze the hydrological performance of a green roof in improving stormwater runoff. A total of three models were built which consist of a non-vegetated model (control model), a recycled waste model, and a commercial model. The recycled green roof model was constructed using waste materials and contained five layers which are the vegetation layer, burnt soil (substrate layer), coconut fibre (filter layer), burnt- coconut shell (drainage layer) and bitumen sealant (waterproofing layer). The components of the model are divided into two parts; roof and body. The dimension of the body is 0.6m x 0.6m x 0.45m. Based on the findings, the percentage of peak flow reduction for recycled green roof and commercial green roof is between 38% to 46% and 19% to 31% respectively. Besides, the recycled green roof with the application of coconut waste as green roof material proved to show a better performance in decreasing stormwater runoff which is 7 × 10 -5 m³/s compared to the commercial green roof which is 9 × 10 -5 m³/s for a 0.15 mm/min rainfall intensity. In addition, the discovery shows that the stormwater runoff increases, the capability heavier the rainfall, the lesser the capability of green roof to reduce peak flow volume.