Stormwater Retention and Reuse at the Residential Plot Level—Green Roof Experiment and Water Balance Computations for Long-Term Use in Cyprus

Green roofs can provide various benefits to urban areas, including stormwater retention. However, semi-arid regions are a challenging environment for green roofs as long dry weather periods are met with short but intense rainfall events. This requires green roofs to retain maximum volumes of stormwater, while being tolerant to minimal irrigation supplies. The objectives of this study are (i) to quantify the stormwater retention of two substrate mixtures with two plant species under natural rainfall; (ii) to assess the performance of two plant species under two levels of deficit irrigation; and (iii) to compute stormwater runoff reduction and reuse by green roofs and rooftop water harvesting systems for three standard residential plot types in urban Nicosia, Cyprus. A rooftop experiment was carried out between February 2016 and April 2017 and results were used to compute long-term performance. Average stormwater retention of the 16 test beds was 77% of the 371-mm rainfall. A survival rate of 88% was recorded for Euphorbia veneris and 20% for Frankenia laevis, for a 30% evapotranspiration irrigation treatment. A combination of a green roof, rainwater harvesting system and 20-m3 tank for irrigation and indoor greywater use reduced stormwater runoff by 47−53%, for the 30-year water balance computations

ConservePlants : an integrated approach to conservation of threatened plants for the 21st century

Even though plants represent an essential part of our lives offering exploitational, supporting and cultural services, we know very little about the biology of the rarest and most threatened plant species, and even less about their conservation status. Rapid changes in the environment and climate, today more pronounced than ever, affect their fitness and distribution causing rapid species declines, sometimes even before they had been discovered. Despite the high goals set by conservationists to protect native plants from further degradation and extinction, the initiatives for the conservation of threatened species in Europe are scattered and have not yielded the desired results. The main aim of this Action is to improve plant conservation in Europe through the establishment of a network of scientists and other stakeholders who deal with different aspects of plant conservation, from plant taxonomy, ecology, conservation genetics, conservation physiology and reproductive biology to protected area's managers, not forgetting social scientists, who are crucial when dealing with the general public.peer-reviewe