Raising the Roof on Resilience
Bloomington, Indiana's Green Roof and Wall Infrastructure Now and in the Future
What is green infrastructure?
- Green infrastructure is a network of greenspaces managed for their ecosystem services (1).
- These ecosystem services are life-supporting benefits that people obtain from interacting with ecosystems (2).
- Green roofs and walls, roofs or walls containing soil and vegetation, are important forms of green infrastructure (4).
- Green roofs and walls can provide a variety of ecosystem services, such as assisting in cooling of buildings and filtering runoff (4).
The basic structure of a green roof (5).
What can green roof infrastructure look like?
- It can be on municipal, industrial, or commercial buildings:
- Or residential buildings:
- It can be agricultural:
- Ornamental:
- Or designed as wildlife habitat:
- Green roofs and walls can accomplish a wide variety of goals simultaneously.
- All of these green roofs provide ecosystem services such as: increased aesthetics, stormwater regulation, water and air purification, cooling, and pollination.
How is green infrastructure related to resilience?
- Resilience is the ability of a system to sustain functioning in response to disturbance (6).
- Six traits of resilience are diversity, redundancy, modularity, connectivity, regenerative ability, and equitability. Each of these traits has social and ecological dimensions.
- Resilience traits help to sustain the ecosystem services that green infrastructure provides (3).
- In an ever-urbanizing world facing a climate emergency, it is critical to understand the current state of green infrastructure and its capacity to promote urban resilience.
How much green roof/wall infrastructure is there in Bloomington?
- We inventoried green roofs/walls in downtown Bloomington and analyzed them according to the resilience traits of diversity and connectivity. Diversity provides the raw material to adapt to change, and connectivity promotes essential flow of resources.
- We identified seven sites with green roofs or walls in downtown Bloomington.
- Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, data collection was limited to five sites, and only two site representatives responded to our questionnaire.
Bloomington Green Roof and Wall Sites
01 / 07
1
Site 1
Given the sensitive nature of Site 1, its identity and location are not disclosed.
2
Union Street Center
3
Graduate Bloomington
4
Monroe County Commissioners Office Garage
5
Urban Station Apartments
6
Morton Place Condo
We were unable to collect data.
7
Fountain Square Mall
We were unable to collect data.
What is the status of green roof/wall infrastructure in Bloomington?
- Downtown Bloomington does not have many green roofs and walls.
- None of the sites had many different types of plants or different types of users, indicating low ecological and social diversity.
- None of the sites were very close to each other or other greenspaces, and most sites had no educational signage and were only privately accessible, indicating low ecological and social connectivity.
- Overall, Bloomington's existing green roofs and walls are not diverse or well-connected, indicating gaps in resilience for Bloomington’s green roof and wall infrastructure as well as for the community as a whole.
Where do we go from here?
- Bloomington has excellent potential to grow its green roofs and walls.
- Our analysis suggests there are a number of easily implementable ways to improve green roof and wall diversity and connectivity in Bloomington: increasing native plant species richness and use of crop species, increasing educational signage, increasing physical and online accessibility, and recruiting volunteers to assist with maintenance.
- We hope that Bloomington will invest in its green infrastructure and increase its resiliency, especially in the face of climate change.
