LIFE CYCLE COSTING OF VERTICAL GREENERY IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

With urbanization occurring in the world, there is an increasing concern on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect due to the clearing of land to make way for man-made infrastructures to provide for the needs of the people. Ways to mitigate UHI have been constantly explored and researched by many, of which implementing greenery in the urban area is one of the effective mitigating strategies to deal with UHI. Despite the tangible and intangible benefits obtained from the implementation of greenery, potential stakeholders are still skeptical about the cost of such additions as found in a perception survey (Wong, 2010). The uncertain costs involved in the entire life span of the vertical greenery are one of the hindering factors preventing the adoption of vertical greenery in Singapore. As such, the life cycle cost (LCC) of the various Vertical Greenery System (VGS), has to be assessed to address such concerns. There are a few types of VGS available in the Singapore, of which the cost of three types of carrier system and one type of support system are included in this study. Interviews are conducted to gather the information and thereafter, the LCC are to be examined in this study. Subsequently, statistics such as T-test are used to identify for significant differences in the LCC of different systems. It was found out that maintenance cost occupies the larger portion of the LCC and the cost is highly dependent on the area to be maintained and the provision of the accessibility.