The Atakama Desert in North Chile is located in the rain in the Andes Mountains. Although it limits the Pacific Ocean, the continuous cold flow known as the Humoult Movement keeps moisture levels in the air relatively low. The clouds are formed, but quickly dissipated. As a result, the rain rarely comes in small quantities – a few millimeters annually, on average in some parts. In other parts, weather stations for decades No precipitation was recorded. Outside a handful of valleys on the Antarctica, Atakama is the most dry place on the floor. The uncontrolled scene of sand, bare rocks, salt is so extreme and another world that it is used as a substitute for Mars by researchers.
However, people live there – most of them in a group of coastal cities and towns. IQuique, the regional capital of Oceanside, is home to more than 230,000 people. Only internal and UPLPE from IQUique is the fast -growing Alto Hospicio municipality More than 140,000 people (Higher than less than 100,000 in 2012) In the midst of lithium mining boom.
Fresh water comes from the underground groundwater layer, which has not been used useful by rain for nearly 10,000 years. With the increase in the number of people on the groundwater layer, it dries. In the end, nothing will remain. It can fill water desalination plants, which remove salt from the ocean water, some need, but they are expensive and intense energy, especially for low -income cities such as Alto Hospicio. Most desalination plants are in service mining, not people.
The source of the water is not exploited, unexploited, and inexpensive, in solving the prosperous water crisis. It is water hiding in a clear show. Fog harvest is a simple and sustainable way to collect moisture from low clouds. It has been used long ago In rural areas All over the world to support a few hundreds of isolated villages. But a new study indicates that it can work on a much larger scale.
analysis February 20 was published In the magazine Borders in Environmental Sciences It indicates that the fog harvest can meet the unofficial needs of Alto Hospicio, providing up to 300,000 liters per week to 10300 people, who often live for the official water distribution system. Currently, they depend on the hidden groundwater layer, but this water is delivered to them via trucks instead of tubes, which increases the cost, reduces reliability and access. For the residents of these settlements, the water supply is more fragile than the rest of the city’s residents, thus providing fog more chance. In addition to drinking water, fog harvest can also be used to irrigate green spaces in the region, or to feed water agriculture – where people provide a cheap source of local foods locally planted.
“This water will not save the city.” Virginia CarterThe author of a leadership, geographical study, and assistant professor at the mayor of Chile University. But fog is a resource that may make a real difference, she says. Carter explains: “This may contribute, and in many places it may be important,” especially as Alto Hospicio continues to grow and climate change makes the current water supply more weakening.
Fog harvest depends on a low -tech set. Usually, the high plastic network, like the type that can be used to shade the family of heat sensitive gardens, is usually enlarged across the columns of support for a few feet in the air. The bottom of the grid transmits moisture that condenses the plate in a storage container, so that it can be easily collected. The more panels and more surface area of the networks used, the more water is harvested.
Unlike the groundwater layer below atacama, Fog Water is a potential resource for renewal. Low clouds are routinely implemented from the Pacific Ocean and bombing by land. Without the network, moisture evaporates in the dry air with the temperature rising every day, but with it, the fog will just a temporary block – provides a valuable fresh water for people, before it is treated and rides to the ocean.
To prove that the fog harvest will be worthy of attention for Alto Hospicio and Northern Chile on a wider scale, Carter and its participants for a year collecting monitoring measurements with satellite images and sports modeling for the region’s fog courses. The researchers created two “standard fog colleges” on a square meter at different heights, along with the weather station to keep the tabs on air moisture, temperature, wind speed and other variables. They also used remote sensing to draw a map of the exact height and the intensity of fog around the province. Finally, they collected these and other data from the current fog collector projects to a sports model aimed at estimating the amount of fog that can be harvested at different times.
They found that the fog was very seasonal, and it appears from May to October (the winter of the southern hemisphere to spring). It reaches its peak in June during the night and early, and all disappear in the warmer months and midday. In the areas directly around Alto Hospicio, fog colleges will lead to an average of an estimated 2.5 liters of water per square meter of the network during the fog season, according to the study.
At this rate, it will take 17,000 square meters of a university (just over three Fields of football) to give 300,000 liters per week – the same water is currently being delivered via the truck to the unofficial ALTO Hospicio settlements every week. However, Carter notes that this is a conservative estimate, as some areas to the north of the city have much more fog capabilities than the average, as it produces more than 5 liters per meter of networks per day. She explained that fog colleges were strategically developed, so only 200-300 fog college university (each of them includes about 20 square meters) reliably provided hundreds of thousands of hoods for at least half a year. Complementary tanks or storage ponds can extend to fog water to a resource throughout the year. “This is a kind of dream. Carter says:” To develop something like this for Alto Hospicio, “Carter says.
If the provision of drinking water to more than 10,000 people is proven to be greater than the initial goal, the smaller experimental projects may provide evidence of the concept. Carter and its colleagues also suggest that the fog harvest is used to irrigate public parks or provide water for water farms, with a lower initial investment. Only 110 square meters of networks will be needed to meet the needs of the green space in the city. One square meter can yield more than 15 kg of leafy vegetables every year.
Before the dream becomes a reality, more work is needed. Scientists want to verify their model estimates through more measurements on the ground, home at the best locations for fog collection enthusiasts. Carter says she also hopes to test the water that has been harvested, and determines the type of treatment needed to make it safe for human consumption. Fog can carry exhaust molecules, bacteria and flour plastic – like any other source of natural water. However, even without treatment, water can still have applications in agriculture or mining.
Indeed, the research progresses. Carter and her colleagues plans to issue a detailed fog map that can be accessed to the public for all North Chile later this year, based on their model. It hopes that local and national government officials will notice. “This study is a very clear example of how scientific knowledge [can] “Contributing to decision -making and public policies,” she says. “We have a problem: we do not have water, and it gets worse. But on the other hand, there is a solution. There is this water sitting and waiting. We just need a logical way to harvest it.”
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