NEWS

“Sponge cities” use innovative landscape and drainage designs to reduce and slow down runoff, while allowing certain parts of the city to flood safely during extreme weather. Here’s Franco:

I’m a water resources engineer who studies and designs strategies for sustainably managing urban stormwater. In response to recent flooding episodes, some U.S. cities are beginning to take steps toward incorporation of sponge city concepts into their stormwater management plans, but most of these projects are still pilots. If this concept is to evolve into the new standard for urban design, city officials and developers will need to find ways to scale up and accelerate this work.

Read the full article here>

Here’s an example of eDD’s work in action: The real-time control system we developed and installed at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden prevented nearly 287,000 gallons of stormwater from entering the combined sewer system during the storm on Tuesday, January 9, 2024, that dropped 1.65 inches of rain! The monitoring data integrated into the system allowed us to gauge performance immediately after the storm.

The FIFTH NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT was just released (November 14, 2023): READ THE ASSESSMENT HERE>

eDD’s Franco Montalto is one of the authors of the NCA5’s chapter on climate impacts and action plans in the Northeast: READ THE NORTHEAST SECTION>

You can catch VIDEO of the Fifth National Climate Assessment Rollout at the White House on YouTube. WATCH THE W.H. ROLLOUT>

Finally, there’s an interactive ATLAS which taps into the power of maps and stories to share information from NCA5 and let Americans know how climate change is affecting their areas. USE THE ATLAS>

EDD’s Eric Rothstein joined the landscape architecture firm @theolinstudio and the client Corporación del Proyecto ENLACE del Caño Martín Peña in receiving the GLOBAL IMPACT AWARD at this year’s annual ASLA award ceremony for the team’s work in Master Planning Caño Martín Peña in San Juan. The project will increase access to safe drinking water, flood protection, economic opportunities, safe housing, and open spaces. What an honor!

eDesign Dynamics’ Managing Partner, Eric Rothstein, presented on urban salt marsh restoration in a presentation entitled “Living Shorelines in Coastal Cities: Where and How to Build Them” at the American Society of Landscape Architects‘ national conference in Minneapolis at the end of October 2023. Eric was joined by SCAPE‘s Pippa Brashear and Indigo River’s Domenica Stasiak.