Franco Montalto was the opening plenary speaker for the sixth annual Hudson River Watershed Alliance (HRWA) Conference in Hyde Park, NY.
Franco also ran a workshop with Eric Rothstein on the utility of Low Impact Development Rapid Assessment (LIDRA) as a new tool for green infrastructure (GI) planning. LIDRA is a computer model that compares the cost-effectiveness of reducing runoff with different GI technologies. A neighborhood in the Fall Kill watershed served as a case study for the demonstration of LIDRA. The LIDRA model evaluated the performance of GI in the watershed over a 30 year period and tracked the total annual expenditures and life cycle costs of GI implementation.