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. Using nets similar to those used in volleyball, residents condense fog, drip-by-drip, into drainage pipes running down the hill into tanks that store hundreds of liters of water for irrigation, bathing and cooking.
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.
Using nets similar to those used in volleyball, residents condense fog, drip-by-drip, into drainage pipes running down the hill into tanks that store hundreds of liters of water for irrigation, bathing and cooking.
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"Pure water from fog, can you believe it?" Noe Neira, Bellavista's community leader said, as he dipped his hand into a brick tank filled to the rim. "There was so much water in the air and we didn't know how take advantage of it."
President Alan Garcia won the 2006 elections in part on a promise to deliver water to millions of impoverished Peruvians, though as he nears the end of his term, Lima's long-term water problems are more vexing than ever.
Lima depends almost exclusively on glacial runoff for water. The United Nations, which has called March 22 World Water Day to raise awareness about shortages, says melting caused by warming in the Andes has already cut by 12 percent flows to the country's arid coast, where two-thirds of the population lives.
That has left the government not only trying to lay more water mains to improve delivery, but also looking into installing desalination plants along the ocean or pumping water out of the Amazon basin to secure future supplies.
Even after a decade of booming economic growth, about a quarter of Peru's city dwellers and half of its rural residents still lack access to working toilets and clean drinking water.
Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L4OV20100322
