Home » Opinion » Chinese Views
City’s rooftop gardens provide an oasis of ‘vertical’ greenery within concrete jungle
Print Edition
A new shopping mall has opened several blocks from my home. I went to check it out last weekend and found it’s different than most commercial centers around the city.
The roof features a hanging garden with green trees, shrubs, plants and flowers. I recognized the palm and peach trees, as well as the Japanese arrowwood and rose bushes, but there were dozens of other plants I couldn’t name.
About 80 percent of Arch Walk, the shopping mall, is covered by greenery, according to a report by Xinmin Evening News. Even some of its walls are hidden behind greenery. A photo from above makes the mall look more like a botanical garden than a shopping center.
While the Hanging Garden of ancient Babylon is long extinct, I get the feeling Shanghai is trying to revive it to some extent. According to the Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau, the city has completed 2.2 million square meters of so-called vertical greenery, among which 1.95 million square meters are on rooftops.
Rooftops, balconies and windowsills make for nice spaces to grow flowers or shrubs when space is limited in metropolises like Shanghai.
The bureau has told Shanghai Daily that rooftop greenery in Jing’an reduces the district’s average temperature by 0.6 degrees Celsius every summer.
Cutting emissions
A hectare of vertical greenery may cut 33.8 tons of carbon dioxide emissions or 41,650 KWH of electricity a year, the bureau says. It may also help rid the air annually of 0.85 tons of pollutants, especially fine PM2.5 particles.
Buildings with the rooftop and walls covered by green leaves will use less energy and have a longer lifespan, the bureau says. Other advantages include noise reduction and less reflected light.
After seeing Arch Walk, I started thinking about the bushes, flowers and grasses either lining the city’s elevated roads or underneath.
Initially many residents feared such efforts to spruce up the city were largely useless and would distract drivers, leading to more accidents.
But city planners have been wise to take advantage of these spaces to add more greenery. Suppose all the piers and girders are covered with green leaves. It would make a difference in helping reduce the “heat island effect” every summer.
Shanghai’s downtown green coverage ratio has reached nearly 40 percent. But a city of nearly 25 million people and more than 3 million automobiles will eventually run out of land for greenery, which makes rooftop gardens and similar ideas an attractive idea.
We need more greenery, not less.
Former US President Bill Clinton once proposed painting all the roofs in his country white to reduce global warming. He won wide support including from then Energy Secretary Steven Chu and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The idea is simple. A white roof can reflect as much as 90 percent of sunlight, thus using less energy to keep a building cool in the summer compared with a black roof.
According to Chu’s calculation, white roofs would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 24 billion tons over 20 years if most Americans took part in the plan.
What would happen if most of the roofs and walls in Shanghai were covered by green leaves? I believe it would be even better than painting rooftops white.
Shanghai doesn’t have the luxury of space, especially downtown. But it does have plenty of rooftops and balconies. With a clear goal and continuous efforts, Shanghai could create an “urban forest” that is unique in the world.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
