
Could Harvesting Fog Help Solve the World’s Water Crisis? - DamienSF
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/could-harvesting-fog-help-solve-the-worlds-water-crisis
======
briantakita
This solution would have negative disruptive impacts.

Harvesting fog would effect dependent microclimates & ecosystems, by taking
water out of the air.

This also has an affect of causing a greater concentration of the water to be
held by big institutions (corporations & government). This creates a social
power imbalance, concentrates the economy to global institutions, & reduces
autonomy of the people who live on the land.

Plundering & profiteering off the commons & reducing autonomy in the guise of
humanitarian efforts.

\---

re: better solutions, after all harvesting fog is a "solution".

Regenerate the ecosystems. Encourage small scale regenerative agriculture,
that utilizes native plants in polycultures to restore ecosystems and
stimulate local health, novelty, & economy.

Restoring local ecosystems has a positive effect on the local watershed.

Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone caused the river to flow again & had
positive fundamental impacts on the local ecosystem.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q)

~~~
dandelany
> Harvesting fog would effect dependent microclimates & ecosystems,

 _Any possible method_ we use to collect water from our surroundings will
affect dependent microclimates and ecosystems. The same could be said about
building reservoirs, or even collecting rainwater. The question is "to what
extent"? Unless you can present some evidence that fog harvesting is truly
disruptive, I'm going to assume it's not much different from collecting rain,
ie. has minimal impact. I haven't found any papers suggesting differently.
Surely these things aren't very efficient, and therefore any one of them is
pulling a tiny fraction of water out of the air. I mean, just think about the
height of a fog cloud, and realize they are only scraping a bit of water out
of the bottom 10 feet of that air column! Certainly it must be better than
draining the Colorado river before it reaches the ocean, as we do currently.

> This also has an affect of causing a greater concentration of the water to
> be held by big institutions

Plastic nets that can be erected by anyone, anywhere are somehow worse in this
regard than _a centralized municipal water supply_?! Or a dam that takes
millions of dollars to build? Quite the opposite. These things are practically
the definition of a decentralized technology.

And, cool video, but your proposed "better solution" seems nonspecific and
naive. The problems are different in every ecosystem, and therefore, so are
the solutions. These nets are only practical in certain environments which
receive regular fog, and wouldn't make sense in Yellowstone. Likewise, all the
wolves in the world won't make it rain more in the Atacama. The problem is
precipitation, not erosion.

~~~
briantakita
Thank you for your response. I would like to take back the inferences I drew
re: centralizing supply. I'm a bit sensitive over some governments making
rainwater collection illegal & ecosystem-friendly landscape design; due to
some of my affected law-abiding friends having issues with it.

> The same could be said about building reservoirs, or even collecting
> rainwater.

That's true. Responsible water stewardship requires systemic discipline that
is case-specific.

One of the principles of regenerative agriculture & similar philosophies (i.e.
permaculture) is to create edge effects to create the context for a more
robust ecosystem. Pooled water, especially when designed to maximize edge
effects (i.e. increasing the circumference of the shore), is a tech that
contributes to creating robust ecosystems.

Harvesting fog seems to fit in many circumstances.

> These things are practically the definition of a decentralized technology.

Well said & I agree. Harvesting fog seems like a legit tech option in concept.

> And, cool video, but your proposed "better solution" seems nonspecific and
> naive.

I was illustrating an example of how a small change has ripples. If history is
any guide, tech (technology & technique) has unexpected benefits & drawbacks.
Every ecosystem is different. As you said...

> The problems are different in every ecosystem, and therefore, so are the
> solutions.

------
designtofly
For those that are interested in data science, there is this related
challenge: The Tableau Foundation Challenge: From Fog Nets to Neural Nets
[https://www.drivendata.org/competitions/9/](https://www.drivendata.org/competitions/9/)

------
tim333
...World’s Water Crisis

Is there a crisis? There seems to be about as much rain as in the past. Maybe
the psychological need for pools and golf courses has increased.

~~~
acchow
And a lot more people than before

------
lazyant
They already have "fog catchers" in Atacama desert, see for example
[http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/05/150521_atrapaniebl...](http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/05/150521_atrapanieblas_chile_desierto_lp)

