Thirsty Peruvians harvesting fog with nets

[Judi Lynn]

Thirsty Peruvians harvesting fog with nets
.22 March 2010 19:02 GMT

BELLAVISTA DEL PARAISO ALTO, Peru (Reuters) - Catching fog with nets is the solution to water scarcity for people who live beyond the reach of utility lines in this sandy hillside shantytown overlooking Peru's capital, Lima. Lima, which along with Cairo is one of the world's two driest capitals, gets only a few drops of rain each year. But thick fog from the Pacific Ocean blankets the coastal hills surrounding the city for eight months a year as hot tropical sun mixes with cold waters of the Humboldt current.

http://news.stv.tv/environment/165149-thirsty-peruvians-harvesting-fog-with-nets/

(Hope Bechtel doesn't hear about this, or they'll be trying to charge Peruvians for this water from the air just as they did in Bolivia before the people overthrew them, and ran their asses out of the country.)

[Mika]

1. Wow

Thanks for posting this. :hi:

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[Downwinder]

2. Model for Arrakis "wind traps?" n/t

[Judi Lynn]

4. I found some photos (Peru, not Arrakis) ........

Fog-catching in a Peruvian slum
Many of Peru's grittiest slums have no traditional access to water. But thanks to a German NGO and some hard work, one is harvesting water from fog that cloaks the night sky.

By Luis Jaime Cisneros, in Lima
Published: 12:02PM GMT 12 Nov 2009

In sprawling settlements like Bellavista del Paraiso - a dusty clutch of streets on Lima's south end named "Beautiful View of Paradise" with eye-popping optimism - there is no running water.

Neither is there a well.

Buying water, which has been trucked in, costs nine times what it does in richer urban areas, precisely in places where no one can afford it.

And Bellavista's more than 200 residents are used to making do without water; in fact, a jaw-dropping 1.3 million of Lima's eight million people have no access to water.

"Really, it just seemed like it would be impossible to catch fog with plastic netting, and that it would turn into drops of water," said Noe Neira Tocto, the mayor of the slum, which lies just inland from the Pacific.

"We are the very first to have fog-catchers in Lima's poor neighborhoods," he said, proudly showing off a system that works with a net that looks a lot like volleyball netting.

"We have five panels that are eight metres by four metres (26 feet by 13 feet)," perched on the mountaintop above, he explained. "With them we are able to collect up to 60 litres per night in wintertime."

Each panel costs the equivalent of $800 (£362), added the 37-year-old Neira.

When the netting traps the fog, water droplets run down it into a small aluminum gutter on the panel's edge. Water keeps collecting until it runs - aided by gravity and drainage canals - down to cement storage tanks that lie halfway down the local hill.

The benefits are many and varied.

Some of the water is channeled to a vegetable garden where food and spices are grown.

Most, though, is kept in ground-level storage tanks for residents to use at home for cooking, cleaning and bathing.

Olga Arce is in charge of popping water-purifying pills into the tanks, mainly to keep out mosquitos, which can spread dengue fever.

More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/6550384/Fog-catching-in-a-Peruvian-slum.html

[protocol rv]

3. Sun and Water don't mix

I think they meant to say "as the hot tropical sun heats and evaporates the cold water...". This is a natural phenomenom I observed as a child, whenever we went up the mountain near the coast, the trees were dripping with water, and we would pull on a branch to soak the other children. It's almost always wet up there, except when the rainy season is as bad as it is now. We had a huge forest fire last night, it's so dry I thought the whole mountain would burn.