October 1, 2026
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Why green walls matter
Urban green walls can take many different forms and can respond to a wide range of contexts and conditions. They can help cities with abundant façade areas but little horizontal space manage issues such as heat, air quality and stormwater.
For example, shading and evapotranspiration can help mitigate urban heat. Capturing particulate and gaseous pollutants can help improve air quality. And intercepting and storing rainfall can help reduce and delay stormwater runoff.
A new paper explores how this green infrastructure can be applied in Southeast Asian cities, drawing on a literature review and a proof-of-concept case study at the Hanoi University of Civil Engineering (HUCE) in Vietnam.
Environmental benefits delivered by a moveable green wall system.
What the research shows
Key findings from the literature suggest:
- Green walls deliver the greatest value when embedded within hybrid nature-based solution (NbS) and water sensitive urban design (WSUD) approaches that combine ecological processes with conventional engineered systems.
- Performance depends on factors such as species selection, wall configuration, façade orientation, irrigation regime and local meteorological conditions.
Testing green walls in Hanoi
A green wall and other WSUD elements installed at HUCE, along with low-cost Internet-of-Things sensors, are being used to compare microclimate and air quality conditions at intervention and control locations. The case study is both a demonstration and a learning platform, generating site-specific data, strengthening local capability, and producing transferable lessons on NbS design and implementation in Vietnam and the region.
Download the resource
This paper was produced as part of the Resilient Urban Centres and Surrounds (RUCaS) Program supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Mekong–Australia Partnership.
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