A Novel Idea for Improving the Efficiency of Green Walls in Urban Environment (an Innovative Design and Technique)

Abstract

The advantages of low-impact development approaches, such as green walls in an urban environment, are numerous. These systems can be applied for managing stormwater, saving energy consumption, decreasing noise pollution, improving runoff quality, improving life quality, and so forth. Besides, atmospheric water harvesting methods are considered a nonconventional water source. There are many studies about the analysis and advantages of green walls and atmospheric water harvesting conducted separately. However, the use of a combined system that uses fog harvesting in the irrigation of green walls has received less attention in previous studies, and therefore in this research, the feasibility of a novel green wall platform was investigated. At first, the potential of using green walls and atmospheric water harvesting in different climates was analyzed. Then a new combined system was proposed and explained. The study results determined that atmospheric water harvesting can be applied as a source of irrigation for green facilities, particularly in the dry season and in periods with lower precipitation. In the Mediterranean climate, summer fog harvesting yields 1.4–4.6 L/m2/day, and the water consumption of green walls is about 4–8 L/day/m2. This can improve one issue of green walls in an urban environment, which is irrigation in summer. Furthermore, the novel system would protect plants from severe conditions, improve buildings’ thermal behavior by decreasing direct sunlight, and increase conventional green walls’ efficiency and advantages.