Delegates from 50 countries recently met in Vancouver, B.C., to discuss a new kind of mining that might revive areas with chronic water shortage problems.
The notion of tapping into life-giving fog to provide fresh, potable water is not science fiction or idle talk, according to officials from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
CIDA and its partner, the International Development Research Centre, are funding fog collection sites in several countries with water shortage problems, including Ecuador, Peru and Chile.
In one small town in northern Chile, where less rain falls per square kilometre than anywhere else in the world, villagers have enough water to irrigate small gardens, grow lemon trees and start
a small fish and seafood process-
ing plant. All this was made possi-
ble by 75 polypropylene mesh nets stretched between two posts lining the ridge of the El Tofo mountains.
The fog collectors “mine” between 25% and 65% of the fog droplets that pass through them, averaging 110,000 litres of waters a day — more than enough to satisfy the community’s needs.
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