Sustainable Urban Development by Expanding the Green Roofs to improve the Urban Environment Quality (case study: Karaj)

Today, with the increasing rate of energy consumption and energy resource constraints, in addition to the environmental pollution and waste of human capitals, the future of human life is at risk and this is increasing toward urbanization. Growth in annual consumption of energy and unbalance between the environment and humans in Iran, has led the need to adherence to the goals of sustainable urban development to be felt more and more. In this context, building components can provide the kind of impact to form a self-sufficient building and such a building take steps towards sustainable urban development. Karaj city which is a metropolis in Iran and rapidly growing, is the same. Unprecedented increase in the population of the city- Karaj is the fourth populous city in Iran- and other urban issues today, have been followed by many problems including environmental ones such as heavy traffic, sound and air pollution and so on. It seems that a good solution for this issue to achieve the goals of sustainable urban development, is green roof. The high added value of the land and low green space area, has led to the situation in which the use of green roof technologies in Iran metropolises seems like a good option due to the improve and sustain the quality of urban environment. Green roofs can have major environmental impacts on contemporary cities. The purpose of this article is the introduction of green roofs as a strategy for sustainable urban development particularly in the city of Karaj. It investigates the benefits of green roofs to determine how they can improve the urban environment.

Keywords:

Sustainable urban development , Green roofs , Environmental problems , Urbanization , Karaj city