Improving the performance of felt-based living wall systems in terms of irrigation management

Vertical greening systems are becoming a new reality worldwide in urban areas in order to increase and enhance green spaces. Commercially there are many systems employing various materials which aim to enable an ade quate development of the vegetal cover, ensuring long-term successful performance. I...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Kaltsidi, Maria Pinelopi, Fernández Cañero, Rafael, Franco Salas, Antonio, Pérez Urrestarazu, Luis
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/152819
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/152819
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2020.126782
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Fytotextile
Green walls
Vertical greening systems
Water management
Water retention capacity
Descripción
Sumario:Vertical greening systems are becoming a new reality worldwide in urban areas in order to increase and enhance green spaces. Commercially there are many systems employing various materials which aim to enable an ade quate development of the vegetal cover, ensuring long-term successful performance. Irrigation represents one of the main key factors, but there is a knowledge gap involving the performance of commercial systems in terms of water management. Felt-based systems present more difficulties due to the smaller water retention capacity, which is an important drawback, especially in warm climates. This work aims to improve an existing commercial system (Fytotextile) in order to optimise water retention and vegetation performance in harsh climate condi tions. Therefore, three evolutions of the Fytotextile system were tested in terms of water retention capacity, drainage and vegetation performance. Fytotextiles 3 and 4 vastly improved the initial water retention capacity of the commercial system (2.9 and 5.8 times that of Fytotextile 1, respectively) but the former exhibited a lower volume of water drained and a slightly better behaviour of the plants.