eDesign Dynamics

Walking through the flooded streets is another interesting experience. Everyone slows down—tremendously. It wasn’t initially clear to me why this was happening. Without cars, there’s always a lot of ground to cover in this city, and the average Venetian typically moves at a healthy gait. Feeling confident in my new stivali, I continued to move at this pace only to find out within a few minutes that I was suffering death by a thousand drops. It seems that each fast step kicks a few drops into the top of your boot. You don’t feel those individual drops, but keep it up and in a few minutes, your socks are soaked. I slowed down, realizing that alas, pazienza, everyone around me was used to this. When there’s acqua alta, it’s OK to be late, or to change the plan, or to cancel appointments. (Though, ironically, not for first graders. My daughter’s new teacher was careful to tell me that acqua alta is not an excuse to be late for school.) Venetians have adapted to contemporary acqua alta the way they adapted to life in a foggy lagoon over a thousand years ago. Life goes on despite it.

Read the full article in The Nature of Cities HERE >

The New York Times recently featured an article on Dr. Franco Montalto’s work in monitoring the ecology of Alley Pond Park and its recent inclusion in the US Forest Services Smart Forest program. The data being collected is part of his efforts in cooperation with the NYC Parks Department for city-wide monitoring of NYC Greenstreets and green stormwater infrastructure.

Dr. Franco Montalto was interviewed by reporter Stephen Nessen of WNYC for their recent NYC 2050 series exploring the impact of climate change on New York City and beyond. Mr. Nessen’s report explores the implications of, and possible solutions to increases in the frequency of intense rain storms.

Speaking on the effectiveness of green infrastructure in the context of New York City’s Greenstreets program, Mr. Nessen reports:

According to Franco Montalto, a professor at Drexel University, who works with the city on its Greenstreets project, if placed in the right location, with curb cuts to allow water in, using sturdy plants that can withstand long droughts and long periods of heavy rain, and with add several layers of engineered soil, bioswales can absorb far more than an inch of rain water (which is what the city hopes they can absorb).

At a Greenstreets in Cambria Heights, Queens, Montalto outfitted the plot with sensitive measuring devices. He found during Sandy and Irene, this plot of land absorbed all the rain water that flowed in, more than seven inches, and didn’t dump any of it into the streets or sewers.

See Mr. Nessen's report at WNYC HERE >

In March, 2014, The Nature of Cities blog launched their monthly global round table seeking to have industry experts and professionals answer specific questions pertinent to the expansion and improvement of green spaces in urban environments.

This month’s question, on which Dr. Franco Montalto weighed in, was:

Many believe that better information on the monetary value of ecosystem services is critical for getting cities to adopt more green infrastructure solutions to issues such as storm water management, heat island, storm surge, etc. True? What are the key knowledge gaps for convincing cities to invest in ecosystems services?

Dr. Montalto's response below:

Decision makers (and individuals) always try to get the most out of their money. However, I believe that we could generate a lot more public support and associated investment in ecosystem services if they were better calibrated to the values, needs, and goals of diverse urban residents.

By modifying the configuration of urban spaces, we can change what happens there, i.e. we add and subtract functions to that particular urban space. A small but rapidly growing body of researchers from different disciplines (including yours truly) are working in lock step with practitioners to study these projects. I am confident that this work, though in its early stages, will ultimately produce robust empirical, statistical, or physical representations of these dynamic conditions, enabling us eventually to predict the various functions obtained from discreet modifications to urban space.

A related, and much more fundamental question, however, is why and how we modify urban spaces in the first place. Stated differently, given that there are an infinite number of ways that we can design/redesign/modify a space, be it a living room, a rooftop, or a wall, how do we settle on any one concept? Research here is less prevalent.

I believe that many green infrastructure advocates often mistakenly assume that a common set of values underlies such decisions, and expect that consensus regarding ecosystem service goals should follow. In my opinion, there is absolutely no reason to believe that such assumptions would be true. Anyone who grew up in a city remembers how differently you perceived the kids from your block compared to the kids on the next one. Even if you grew up in the suburbs, you remember how different the neighborhood on your side of the tracks was from the one on the other side. Our cities are dynamic networks of enclaves (voluntary clustering for example by ethnicity, lifestyle, or sexual orientation) and ghettos (default and/or imposed involuntary segregation of minority groups). In the US, zoning and other land use policies have also segmented our cities into commercial, residential and industrial areas, and physically separated high income from low income households on parcels of different sizes. We’ve got neighborhoods that are “where it is at”, neighborhoods that are “up and coming”, and neighborhoods that may- or may never- be; we’ve got contested, dangerous, sacred, and safe spaces; and both public and private land. The folks who live, work, and circulate through urban neighborhoods see different opportunities, face different challenges, have different goals, and, therefore, desire radically different things from the spaces around them. As any community planning meeting will demonstrate, most proposed changes to communities generate debate. If the transition to more enhanced urban ecosystem services is to be meaningful in scale and impact, it too will generate significant debate and discussion, and different strategies will emerge in different places.

I suppose that on a very basic level, it is safe to assume that we all want cleaner, healthier, more efficient cities, and broad typologies of ecosystem services (e.g. clean air, clean water, etc.) can be mapped to these goals. But in this usage, the ecosystem service concept is, to me, too general to be actionable and will therefore only generate lackluster support from the public. On the other hand, if the growing body of ecosystem service practitioners is willing to get down and dirty, more nuanced (and therefore more relevant = politically powerful) ecosystem service goals that address the real needs, goals, and aspirations of community residents can be developed. If you were a city council person, would you expect more phone calls from your constituents if you touted the need for cleaner water, or if instead you articulated your support to efforts that would create opportunities for gardening for local seniors; cut off the ability of thieves to access the backs of our houses; and eliminate persistent puddling in the streets after rainstorms?

The challenge is that as diverse as our communities are, is as diverse as these customized ecosystem service goals will be. It takes time and effort to inventory community needs, and the responsibility for doing so does not fall squarely on a water department, a public works department, or even on local politicians. Yet, by definition, ecosystem service goals need to be elicited directly from the public. They will be varied and responsive to the needs of different urban constituencies. They will vary from community to community, and from city to city. They will need to be adapted and changed over time, as communities change.

I am suggesting that instead of viewing ecosystem services as some new, noble, post-Brundtland, 21st century, game changing theoretical concept, let’s just think of this term as a name for our ever-improving multi-faceted abilities to map local to global, built to natural, and people to nature. If we can demonstrate the relevance of the concept in this way, very little convincing of the need for investment in ecosystem services will be required. It will be obvious.

The complete list of responses may be found at The Nature of Cities HERE >

As it turns out, a key metric to charting urban green roof success is evapotranspiration, a combination of evaporation and plant transpiration. To learn more about ET and establish better procedures to estimate ET from green roofs, a group of researchers from Drexel University set up an experiment in Bronx, N.Y. Their work, published in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ journal, will make ET estimates for urban green spaces more accurate.

“There are different ways of estimating evapotranspiration. Many of the empirical methods are based on energy and water balance computations, and use crop coefficients to consider variability due to plant type,” said Franco Montalto, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Drexel University. “A big question is whether these equations are appropriate for green roofs and other urban green spaces.”

The full article may be found at The Environmental Monitor HERE >