Date of Award

2009

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Department

Environmental Applied Science and Management

First Advisor

Dr. Li

Second Advisor

Dr. Banting

Abstract

Green roofs offer exciting potential as a technology that is capable of ameliorating environmental problems in urban areas. Little is known about the vegetative communities on existing installations and systematic design procedures for green roofs are currently lacking. The current research has performed a vegetation census on eight installations in downtown Toronto and has considered relationships between vegetation demography, installation physical parameters, and maintenance activities. The frequency and abundance of planted and colonist species are examined to quantify variation in vegetation assemblages. The use of an installation classification scheme based on dominant photosynthetic pathway is examined. This study provides recommendations for the construction of recommended species lists and highlights several areas for future research.