Abstract

Green roofs are a sustainable solution to manage water runoff from rain events in urban areas. Modeling hydrological phenomena of green roofs over long period is challenging because of the difficulties to both characterize the soil parameters and to take into account the dynamics of the vegetation and the meteorological variables. The water retention capacity is represented by the Van Genuchten - Mualem model implemented in Hydrus-1D©. For the calibration of the model, global sensitivity analysis is exploited to quantify the effects of parameter uncertainties on the water retention capacity. The results of this study highlight the most influential parameters on the water retention capacity and lead to an efficient reduction of the parameter uncertainties.