Journal of Earth Science & Climatic Change
Open Access

Abstract

The building sector – public and private, residential and industrial, plays an important role when seeking to address greenhouse gas emissions. Thermal insulation is a technique which reduces energy consumption due to thermal regulation in buildings, thereby reducing the emission of substances which are damaging to human health and/or to the climate, such as carbon dioxide CO2. Amongst those technologies which can lead to improvements in energy efficiency in buildings, green walls are of considerable interest: a technology as yet little widespread, particularly in the south. Green walls could represent an extremely useful technology in the control of thermal dispersion in buildings. However, research in this area is still very much on-going and mostly regards examples of green walls constructed in central and northern Europe, where the main problem faced by energy efficiency schemes in buildings is that of heating. In the Mediterranean area, however, the main problem is cooling buildings and there is very little scientific data and information on the issue to date. In this paper we consider studies carried out in the Mediterranean area on the identification and characterization of species which are particularly adapted for use in the construction of large-surface green walls.

Biography

Salvatore La Bella has completed his PhD in Agronomy Science from Sassari University and Post-doctoral studies from Palermo University. Since 2008, he teaches phyto-remediation at the Polytechnic school of the University of Palermo. He works at the University of Palermo as researcher. The main topics are: roof garden, phyto-remediation, aromatic and medicinal plants. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of repute.

Email: salvatore.labella@unipa.it