October 10, 2018 Blog by Rob Nicely

A Foggy Source of Water Becomes Clear

If there’s one thing that rings true much of the year, the Monterey Peninsula has no shortage of fog. It obscures the scenery, puts a damper on plans (and moods) and can be collected and used as a supplemental water source. Wait. What?

While it will never be a source of water that can meet the demands of Peninsula residents, CSUMB professor and local expert “fog catcher,” Dr. Daniel M. Fernandez, is testing its applicability as a supplemental resource. He’s been studying fog for years and has built many fog collectors. Recently, he got his students involved. “This was the most fog collectors I have built at any one time and in any one place,” he says.

Dan and his students constructed and installed 10 fog collectors on the CSUMB campus. Resembling a screen door on posts, collectors are made with specialized mesh screens that catch water particles as fog makes its way through. Water droplets fall into a trough, equipped with a built-in gauge for measurement. Over the course of a few days, about 11 liters of water were collected. Each of the 10 fog collectors were set up to funnel collected water to an oak tree sapling. “The project will tell us if the trees can get enough water from fog collectors alone,” says Dan.

Dan has had experience building fog collectors here and has traveled extensively through Chile—one of the first countries to initiate such efforts. He, along with many experts in the field, believe that fog collectors may be a potential source for reforestation on land that doesn’t have piped-in water. “In some areas where there’s little or no rain, there is fog,” he says. “The best fog collection is at elevations of 2,000 feet or above. One project in Chile was close to the ocean and nets were set up to pipe water down to a village, supplying their water for nine years. Another used fog to water a grove of olive trees and soon they’ll be producing olive oil using the fog-fed plants.”

Fernandez has applied for a grant to do state-of-the-art research to determine what fraction of water is collected by different types of mesh given different fog droplet sizes. Researchers are also looking at tree rings to determine whether the trees were watered by rain or fog during different periods of their growth, as each have chemically different isotopes.

“Fog collectors have many potential applications for addressing the effects of climate change,” he says. Areas in the west are experiencing more drought and becoming more susceptible to large scale fires. Trees are good collectors of fog, but if the trees are destroyed, can fog collectors act as a supplement? He also posits questions like, “Are we going to get less water in the future with climate change and will fog patterns be affected?” “The answer to both questions is ‘yes,’” says Dan, “but we don’t know the extent or timeframe. We need long-term fog collection to know. While there is a future in fog, it’s not going to take the place of other sources for the kind of water usage we have in the U.S. But there may be applications where there isn’t access to potable water.”

For a closer look, watch this KSBW segment or a TEDx talk given in 2011 by Dr. Fernandez.
As always, feel free to send your questions to info@carmelbuilding.com.