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[(Dustin Partridge) Green roofs are something that's really, truly sustainable. ]
[It's development, but it's something that is helpful to the environment, ]
[and it's something that is going to be helping the local community as well. ]
[(female narrator) Dustin Partridge is a doctoral candidate at Fordham University. ]
[He's studying how green roofs can serve as important wildlife habitat in large cities]
[like New York. (Partridge) New York City is right along the Atlantic flyway,]
[and these birds are flying through, stopping over, looking for food to eat, ]
[and maybe they're stopping on our green roofs, which is ]
[potentially a great spot for them, but if there's nothing there for them to eat]
[while they're migrating, then it's not the best habitat. (female narrator) Partridge has]
[a few ways of telling how healthy the green roof habitat really is. On 13 roofs around]
[New York boroughs, he sets up traps to find out what kind of insects live there.]
[He conducts weekly surveys to watch for visiting birds, and from dawn to dusk he also]
[records noises on the roof. (Partridge) Any time a bird lands and vocalizes, that]
[time is recorded and it picks it up. And then I can go back and go through all the data]
[and figure out what birds were on that roof. (female narrator) For every green roof ]
[Partridge surveys, he also compares it to a nearby traditional roof.]
[(Partridge) The blacktop roof is set up the exact same way as my green roof ]
[and is basically a way for me to figure out what species are in the neighborhood.]
[(female narrator) So far his survey showed around 200 species of insects. ]
[On the green roofs, they are up to 11 times more abundant than on traditional roofs. ]
[He has also found 23 species of birds unique to green roofs including ]
[rare Peregrine falcons and lots of ruby-throated hummingbirds. The advantages ]
[provided by green roofs are numerous. They save money on heating and cooling ]
[bills and trap storm-water runoff. Many cities grant tax incentives for green roof ]
[owners too, and now thanks to Partridge's study, we know that they also provide ]
[significant benefits for wildlife. (Partridge) On top of all those environmental]
[benefits, I am very interested in how we could reconnect people with ]
[the environment. There's this idea of the extinction of experience, where ]
[these people that are living in an urban environment really don't have a chance]
[ to connect with the outdoors. (female narrator) Approximately 34% of Manhattan]
[is rooftop whereas only about 15% of the city is natural habitat or green space. ]
[(Partridge) Lower Manhattan, the chaos is there, and you hop in the elevator]
[and you go up and you walk out into a little oasis, and you're a quarter mile from ]
[the nearest set of trees, 2 miles from any park. And yet up there you hear ]
