Sustainable assessment of using green roofs in hot-arid areas-Residential buildings in Jordan

Technology contributed to providing solutions for the problems related to the Urban Heat Island, the decrease in green areas, and the raising of the earth's temperature. The construction sector was one of the areas applying technological solutions such as the Green Roof. Studies proved that using GR may reduce energy consumption and enhance thermal comfort by reducing the UHI phenomena. Thus, this study aims to evaluate GR's efficiency in hot-arid areas from a sustainable point of view and customize the best model suitable to use in this region. The study was designed to be able to generalize for other regions. A Focus group determines the study variables and values. A holistic evaluation is made to evaluate the GR efficiency from the energy, environmental, economic, and social aspects. The results showed that the best model was achieved by using the lowest U-value of soil and the highest amount of plant's shading cover. These properties reduced the consumption to more than half, accompanied by a decrease in the cost of energy and environmental impacts. The economic analysis showed the efficiency of investment in several cases, while just three cases proved its social competence.