Watering Deserts

August 30th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer

The increasing desertification of the planet due to climate change is a serious threat to future humans, so technology that can create water in deserts is arguably one of the more critical technologies that we need to master.

Wacky ideas that purport to solve serious climate issues are a dime a dozen, but ones that have actually proven themselves – by actually working in the real world – are welcome news.

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At two years into successful operation on the largely arid Arabian peninsula, the “fog catcher” is such a concept.

Collaborating with Mitsubishi, the desert state of Oman began a five-year test of a fog collection project, two years ago. The idea is to catch the moisture in sea breezes and trap it in a special mesh that is designed for the purpose, store it in a reservoir, and use it to plant seedlings in the desert.

Suspended perpendicular to incoming sea breezes in the coastal Al Qara mountains, 9-foot tall, 60-foot long mesh nets catch the fog.

The simple device invented by Fogquest is suspended next to a reservoir to hold the captured water. Moisture caught in the mesh drips down to a reservoir holding tank capable of storing 14,000 cubic feet of water.

Now, two years into the five year test, results are very good. Just like Redwood trees that capture and store coastal fog in California, this mesh, in the absence of trees in the region, is doing the job that trees do, and is capturing the water that trees will eventually need, in order to grow, so that they can ultimately take over the job themselves.

By the end of the five year test, in 2013, 1,000 tree seedlings will have been planted with a little of the stored water, creating a greenbelt. In the meantime, the reservoir will continue to be added to each year, so there is a secure, ongoing supply of water to keep them growing over the years. The trees are fenced off so that livestock can’t eat them.

The plantings should help reverse four decades of desertification in parts of Oman.

Image: Flikr user Louis Carnage and Angela Shah

Source: Green Source Construction

Susan Kraemer @Twitter

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Tags: catch, deserts, fog, Fogcatcher, moisture, oman, seedlings, waater

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

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I really don’t accept this particular blog post. Nevertheless, I had looked with Google and I have found out that you are right and I seemed to be thinking in the wrong way. Continue producing high quality content such as this.
Mikehattan

Last year, I was out early in a very foggy morning in Page Valley VA and I passed some wire fences and noticed nearly every little square in the fence had a spiders web in it. The droplets of water were very abundant on every web. Segueing to the comment about the greedy goats, didn’t someone recently invent a very strong fiber made by combining some spider DNA with that of goats horns? Just asking.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Cute idea… How appropriate!
Jacob

Man Oman,

I think there was a similar problem in Syria, with people grazing goats where they shouldn’t. If people are involved in permacultural practices however, they can renew the land in time.
http://ynotoman.wordpress.com Oman

“this mesh, in the absence of trees in the region”

– in fact there are trees – here is a picture that shows a scene http://ynotoman.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/ynotomanstork.jpg

However in amongst those trees are camels, cows and goats in unsustainable numbers – the trees don’t stand a chance, except on precipitous slopes. The plateau of the mountains is now practically devoid of trees and has no re-growth

So the mesh is substituting for the trees that were there, but were eaten by the animals that are there, to create water to irrigate trees that might be there, for the animals that will be there to eat, when the fence is destroyed.
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Very amusing, got it, and thanks for the pic