Operational effect of green roof systems with a modified substrate-adding soda residue soil

Abstract

To investigate whether soda residue soil could be used as a green roof substrate, this paper setup six green roof systems with four materials (peat soil, coconut bran, perlite, and soda residue soil) mixed in different volume proportions. The effect of soda residue soil content on Sedum lineare growth and pollutant removal from the stormwater runoff was analyzed and the runoff quality index (RQI) was calculated. Results showed that the relative growth rate of S. lineare height in system B with 10% soda residue soil was about 21.5–53.2% higher than the other systems. The outflow of system B with 10% soda residue soil had the lowest mass concentration of NH4+-N and TN, which were 2.2, 3.2 mg/L, respectively. The average repetitive rainfall retention rate of system A without soda residue soil was the lowest at 82.6%. System B had the highest RQI at about 0.71. It confirmed that soda residue soil can be a material with practical application value, and when the volume ratio of peat soil, coconut bran, perlite, and soda residue soil was 4:3:2:1, the green roof would have the best performance in regulating and purifying the initial rainwater runoff.