Aquifers feel there pressure of increasing populations and farms; as a result, cities around the world get drastically close to running out of water. The solution in some places may have been under our noses the entire time: fog. In Lima they already have a system in place to capture water from fog to supplement existing sources, and other coastal cities are paying attention. The coolest part of the fog catching technology is that it comes from ancient techniques using tees!
In 2009, German conservationists Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich planted 800 she-oak trees in Peru to create a natural fog-catching system that aimed to replicate this ancient technique. During their research they found that trees with vertical, needle-like leaves work as an organic net to which drops of water adhere. They later went on to develop artificial nets that could also capture water.
Marzol has been studying “the hidden precipitation” in fog for nearly 25 years now, partly because modern meteorological instruments struggle to measure its relationship with precipitation. During the course of her research she has witnessed the social transformation that can occur in communities that collect fog water.