Vertical Greening Systems for Acoustic Insulation and Noise Reduction

Abstract This chapter provides an overview to the ability of vertical greening systems to provide acoustic insulation at building scale and to reduce the urban noise in the built environment. The main influencing aspects for acoustic insulation and noise reduction, i.e., the differences between the current constructive systems (basically green facades and green walls), the plant species (climber plants vs shrubs and herbaceous, or perennial vs deciduous), and the operating methods will be analyzed. From the research studies reviewed it can be observed that VGS has a great potential as acoustic insulation with interesting measured reductions in controlled laboratory conditions (weighted sound reduction index (Rw) of 15 dB). Despite this, some improvements must be applied to the current construction systems, because in the in situ experiments, the thin layer of vegetation (20–30 cm) was only able to provide an increase in the sound insulation of 1 dB for traffic noise.