Search

Building-Integrated Greenery systems, i.e., green roofs, walls, and facades, are Nature-based Solutions that make possible the renaturing of cities when there is no room for traditional greenery solutions. These green systems provide several ecosystem services at both the building and city level, such as urban heat island effect mitigation and noise reduction, support for biodiversity, runoff control, thermal and acoustic insulation, etc. However, once implemented in real cases, their impact is almost never evaluated. This fact limits the possibility of carrying out cost-benefit analyses that contribute to justifying their long-term maintenance, thus putting at risk their long-term sustainability and consequently the provision of benefits. Unlike existing approaches, the method presented here offers a comprehensive and practical tool that addresses the gap in BIG systems’ impact evaluation, facilitating informed decision-making and promoting the long-term sustainability of BIG systems. • In its design, the current references at European and global level for building-integrated systems impact assessment has been considered. • It is easily replicable in any real project and enables the collaboration of involved stakeholders. • The method is unprecedented and allows a holistic assessment of the impact of BIG in real cases, in terms of ecosystem services provided.

Corn is an example of an agricultural grain with a specific combustibility level and can promote smoldering fires during storage. This paper conducts an experimental design to numerically evaluate how three parameters, namely particle size, moisture, and air ventilation, influence the smoldering velocity. The work methodology is based on Minitab’s experimental design, which defined the number of experiments. First, a pile of corn is heated by a hot plate and a set of thermocouples registers all temperature variations. Then, a full-factorial experiment is implemented in Minitab to analyze the smoldering, which provides a mathematical equation to represent the smoldering velocity. The results indicate that particle size is the most influential factor in the reaction, with 35% and 45% variation between the dried and wet samples. Moreover, comparing the influence of moisture between corn flour and corn powder samples, a variation of 19% and 31% is observed; additionally, analyzing the ventilation as the only variant, we noticed variations of 15% and 17% for dried and wet corn flour, and 27% and 10% for dried and wet corn powder. Future studies may use the experimental design of this work to standardize the evaluation methodology and more effectively evaluate the relevant influencing factors.