LIMA—Many of Peru’s grittiest slums can only dream of access to water. But thanks to a German NGO, simple technology, and hard work, some humble homes are the first to use plastic netting to harvest water from the fog cloaking the night sky.
In sprawling settlements like Bellavista del Paraiso—a dusty clutch of streets on Lima’s south end named “Beautiful View of Paradise” with some eye-popping optimism—there is no running water.
There is no well.
Buying water, trucked in by resellers, 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; they are among the stunning 1.3 million of Lima’s eight million people who 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 meters by four meters (26 by 13 feet),” perched on the mountaintop above, he explained. “With them we are able to collect up to 60 liters (16 gallons) per night in wintertime.”
Each single panel costs the equivalent of $800, 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 drain canals—down to cement storage tanks that lie halfway down the local hill.
The benefits are huge and multifaceted.
Part of the water is channeled to a vegetable garden where vegetables and spices are grown.
Most, though, is kept in ground-level storage tanks for residents to use at home for cooking, cleaning, and bathing.
Local Olga Arce is in charge of popping water-purifying pills into the tanks mainly to keep out mosquitos because they can spread dengue fever.
The idea stems back to German biologists Anne Lummerich and Kai Tiedemann, with the German NGO Alimon, recalled Neira. When the two arrived in Bellavista in 2006, they were surprised how dense the fog was and encouraged locals to see if they might be able to tap the fog to improve their lives.
They helped with the system’s construction and installation and stayed a few months teaching locals how to run it before heading home.
They called it a Green Desert experiment, and even after one day running, it looked like a success. Some were disappointed at having to use purifying tablets, though.
And it is not all simple going: locals have to trudge up the mountain at least twice a week to check on the state of the nets.
It is a steep and slippery path. At 5:00 a.m., time for one recent outing, visibility was near zero at the hilltop, 600 meters (almost 2,000 feet) above sea-level.
But it’s worth the work, said Olga Cajahuaman. She said she grows radishes, greens, and spices “with the fog water.” The water and food supplies are heaven sent for families earning under $200 a month.
French hydrologist Alain Gioda said the fog-catching actually recalls an ancient Inca technique in which plants and trees—not nets—were used to gather water here, collected at the base of the tree or plant.
“But what was possible with those techniques and an (Inca) empire of eight million is not possible on a current scale of a country of 28 million people,” he added.
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Comments
View as Flat
Delay And Deny Posted 8:03 am
13 Nov 2009
Imagine being able to build or drag a pre-fab house to some remote acres, plop it down and begin living there?
What would you need? Well, you'd need energy. No problem. Wind and solar can generate hydrogen, which can be used to power the house, and to power your vehicle (like an emissions free Hummer, so you don't need roads).
How about communications? Get a wimax antenna and Internet away.
How about water? That's always been a hard one...but now you're telling me you can capture it from mist! Even if you do choose a spot near water it might not be potable.
No problem...if you're using a hydrogen fuel cell, the by product is water! So you can electrolyze some brackish or mist water, make hydrogen and when you use it in the fuel cell, pure water emerges as the "exhaust".
A complete self sustained eco-system on your little acres of land.
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Zasuu Posted 9:13 am
13 Nov 2009
But let's start by respecting each other and the situations in which we all live, including the residents referred to in the article. These people do live in disadvantaged, low income areas. But they have as much interest as anyone to make their homes and communities safe, clean and livable. They just lack resources to improve them as much as even they would like.
So let's stop using the perjorative term slum. My experience throughout the world is that residents of these areas are just as motivated as anyone else to have communities they can be proud of and it is not for us to judge and label them by their current circumstances, any more than we would want them to judge and label our living situations.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:35 am
16 Nov 2009
With drainwater systems running into greenhouses, nearly all of the water used can be recaptured. Composting toilets can hold the pathogenic waste and nuetralize it, while the rest of water feeds underground into a greenhouse with a plastic layer under the soil layer.
The plants then "distill" the water, turning it into vapor coming out of their leaves, as night cools the greenhouse the water condenses inside and it can be caught and collected as it drips. With another bit of technology, compound parabolic solar collecting PV louvers, electricty and hot water can be collected, and the lovers can adjust the amount of heat in the greenhouse to protect the plants on hot days.
This is the sort of technology that will work in LA just as well as it will work in Peru. You have to admire the NGO model for low-tech green human-helping delivery, would eco-tourism go with this?
The water collecting screens are interesting too and would work well with the solar water recycling greenhouse, but could a groundwater temp tank, that keeps water fresh and cool and mosquito free be employed instead of a toxic chemical treatment? Also it would seem a rudimentary improvement would be to only water crops with drain water (minus sewage of course).
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Mikey400 Posted 10:09 am
22 Nov 2009
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