10/20/2026
As urban growth strains municipal storm systems, stormwater management is shifting toward source-point control using "Blue Roofs" on low-sloped buildings to store water right where it falls. Serving as an alternative to ground-level storage vaults—especially on tight, high-water-table, or lot-line-to-lot-line sites—these systems are typically integrated into vegetated roofs or paver amenities.
They operate through either stormwater retention, which captures and reuses water on-site through evapotranspiration, or stormwater detention, which temporarily holds rainfall to release it at a controlled rate and prevent municipal overflows.
For this Technical Tuesday, our Building & Roofing Science team pulled the key points from Jim Kirby's technical paper on blue roofs: http://spr.ly/6180BGt6zo