Résumé
Introduction: In the last decades, urban environment climate has faced some gradual changes due to the replacement of vegetation by impervious areas. As a consequence, several environmental problems have appeared in urban centres. Rooftops are a significant part of the hard surfaces in urban areas changing the heat balance and thus increasing the heat island effect. Vegetation can have a positive effect in the microclimate and macroclimate lowering urban air temperature in the buildings surroundings due to evapotranspiration and shading. Therefore, green roof technology may help to overcome this well-known problem. In the present study, two green roof platforms with different substrates have been implemented with aromatic plant species. Infrared thermography studies have been performed to assess the effect of different aromatic plants on temperature mitigation. However, several limitations of this technique must be considered, namely, emissivity and exterior conditions. These limitations can be overcome with dynamic measurements, for different periods, which will be a future development of this work. Conclusions: The use of vegetation on roofs appears as a potential alternative technology that contributes to the mitigation of the urban heat island effect. The green roof structure as building component influences the microclimate in urban areas, especially due to the vegetation contribution. This contribution was positively evaluated with infrared thermography measurements for different green roof plant species in spite of the inherent technology limitations. The present research study will contribute to the application of infrared thermography as a technique to assess the surface temperature on green roofs vegetation at a smaller scale and to the urban environment at a larger scale.