September 2014 – FogQuest at the Genoa Science Festival in November
FogQuest will provide a model of a large fog collector for display at the Genoa Science Festival in Italy. We will also do a live interview during the festival. This is part of the educational mandate of our charity where we provide information to the public on the benefits of this non-conventional source of water.

September 2014 – FogQuest To Begin an Evaluation Project in Honduras

In cooperation with ECOVIDA Global, who leads the project, FogQuest will initiate an evaluation project using Standard Fog Collectors (SFCs) in the central mountains of Honduras. Two of our volunteers will be in the field to install the SFCs. The project has a goal of helping 1000 Mayan villagers obtain clean water and will begin in November. An update will be posted once the project is underway.

August 2014 – FogQuest Training Session on the Construction of Fog Collectors

FogQuest has now started formal training sessions on how to construct a large fog collector (LFC). They are being done in Chile by an experienced member of the FogQuest team, Virginia Carter. Virginia has supervised construction on FogQuest projects in South and Central America as well as in Africa. The first course took place in August. This two-day course includes a detailed look at all the components of an LFC, a hands-on building experience at a site near Santiago, and a discussion of safety, site selection, and other related issues. The person being trained is responsible for his/her own travel and insurance costs as well as all material and other expenses related to the training session.

For more information, please contact us at info@fogquest.org.

How have the 35 Large Fog Collectors (LFCs) held up in Tojquia after another dry season? This is the question I recently sought to answer. Though we at FogQuest remain committed to our projects, we approach ongoing operation and maintenance issues with a little apprehension. The task of caring for a collector cannot rest with a development agency or charity, such as ourselves, the onus is on the beneficiaries to “take ownership” of the technology for themselves. But, many issues might prevent adequate maintenance, such as a lack of access to parts or tools, a lack of time or knowledge in undertaking these tasks. Sometimes the locals have little control over some of these issues. The one we worry most about, however, is a lack of will.

I am full of questions. Did the collectors remain functional? Has the mesh remained taut despite strong winds? Do the troughs have leaks? Ultimately, does the community continue to support this technology? Tell me everything, I inquired of one particular community leader named Lázaro. Integral to our efforts from the very first build in 2006, Lázaro serves as a broker of sorts, a community coordinator. He plays a vital role by encouraging participation and leading by example. He ensures the villagers come together to support each other with maintenance tasks.

Specifically, he tells me the collectors are “magníficos” (magnificent) – his word! He shared with me how the collectors have provided enough water during the dry season that nearly no trips to faraway watering holes were necessary. The household tanks were almost always full of fog water, he stated. Everyone continues to be happy with the LFCs. Some nets have needed minor sewing, others trough repairs, but all of them – all 35 systems – are in good working condition. In fact, he recently got together with some neighbours to complete cable tightening (a maintenance task) on a particularly remote collector. The collector he referred to belongs to a very elderly couple who are unable to do this task for themselves.

In Tojquia, Fernanda and I have worked very hard to teach maintenance techniques and instill a sense of confidence in the villagers. We have insisted that they can, and should, take care of this technology so that it can last them a long time. Working in collaboration with each other, getting over differences, and finding solutions together through dialogue is the only way the community can develop. We always emphasize these points during our short field stints, but, these ideas are not so easily taught. Instead, they need to be made part of the local culture. They need to be accepted beliefs by the villagers and put into practice. Fortunately, for yet another dry season, the villagers have done just that. They have addressed the technical needs of the collectors, have done so collaboratively, and have realized the direct benefits to their families. Since the first collectors were installed in 2006, they have been cared for and are functional in Tojquia. The will persists, the way is there.

Though my calls sometimes start with a few nervous questions, I know the most unsettling one of all awaits me at the end of the conversation. When I speak with any villager, inevitably they will ask: “When will FogQuest come visit us again?” Help us continue to expand fog collection technology more widely and impact even more communities such as Tojquia. A donation to FogQuest today can make this happen.

– Melissa Rosato

FogQuest’s innovative technique for producing clean water from fog has been presented at past world Expositions. It will be highlighted again in Milan, Italy at Expo 2015 where photos of our work in Guatemala will be shown in the Arid Zone cluster.

http://www.expo2015.org/it/esplora/cluster/zone-aride

September 2013 – New Project in Chiquisis, Guatemala

In March of this year FogQuest began the evaluation stage of a new fog collection project in Guatemala in cooperation with our local partner Vivamos Mejor (VM), a Guatemalan NGO whose executive director is Eduardo Secaira Juarez. Two volunteers went from Canada, Dr. Richard Taylor and Craig van Lankveld (see photo). They worked with staff of VM, and people in the village, to set up three Standard Fog Collectors (SFCs) and one Medium Fog Collector (MFC) (see photo).

The principal goals for the trip were to do an initial village needs assessment and to put the infrastructure in place to enable the fog collection rates to be determined. The village of Chiquisis has a population of approximately 750 people, living in 140 houses. The location chosen to erect the fog collectors is a 20 minute walk east of the village. From here, fog water could be taken by pipe into the village and should the evaluation show there is sufficient water production, the next stage would be to plan a major water supply using Large Fog Collectors (LFCs).

At present, there is one large tank (see photo) beside the MFC. The villagers only local source of water is an inconsistent spring accessed by earth trenches about a 30 minute walk uphill from the homes. The village needs assessment prepared by Craig and notes on the materials and their costs prepared by Rick are very helpful documents. The reports by VM show the measurements are now going well. Because we are in the rainy season at present, very large amounts of water are being produced by the SFCs and the MFC on days with rain, or rain and fog, and lesser amounts on days with only fog. This is as expected and so far the results for the site are positive.

We will have to continue the evaluation into the next dry season to better understand the seasonality of the water production. We will also have to spend more time with the villagers to see how they envisage a new water supply helping their community.

Your support through donations to FogQuest will help us to carry out this work.

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September 2013 – FogQuest Makes Conference Proceedings Available

For a number of years it has not been possible to purchase copies of the proceedings from the earlier conferences on fog and fog collection.

In response to requests from libraries, scientists and others interested in the field, we have now scanned the proceedings from the 1998 Conference in Vancouver, Canada, the 2001 Conference in St. John’s, Canada, the 2004 Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, and the 2007 Conference in La Serena, Chile.

This makes a total of over 400 excellent short papers available for easy download. Please visit our Conference page or the FogQuest Store on this website if you would like to acquire a copy of one or more of the proceedings volumes.

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August 2013 – FogQuest projects featured at UNESCO Conference

FogQuest´s unique integrative project approach that addresses the physical and social considerations needed for successful projects has been recognized internationally. In May 2012, FogQuest´s Fernanda Rojas presented a paper on two of our initiatives at the UNESCO Conference on Technologies for Sustainable Development held at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

Co-written with Virginia Carter and Melissa Rosato, Fog Collection Technology Transfer and Co-Creation Projects in Falda Verde, Chile and Tojquia, Guatemala (http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-00639-0_23) was chosen out of 82 submissions for inclusion as a chapter in the book: “Technologies for Sustainable Development: A Way To Reduce Poverty?” published by Springer in August 2013.

The themes of empowerment and knowledge sharing discussed in the chapter are critical for methodologies that value capacity building and sustainability. It is our hope to continue sharing our lessons learned with the wider development community in order to increase the potential for successful fog collection projects.

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August 2013 – New pilot project in Nepal

Building on the success of a two panel project at the Prathivara temple in the Ilam district, a new pilot project with a new SFC data recording system and some different structural materials will be established this October in the Tapeljung district of eastern Nepal. This project involves three partner agencies; FOST (Foundation for Sustainable Technologies) in Kathmandu will assist in the construction, Toronto based NCDF ( Nepal Community Development Foundation) is financing and developing the collector, and NCDC ( Namsaling Community Development Centre) will maintain the system and monitor the collection data.

FogQuest continues its participation in the fog collection projects in Nepal through the involvement of one of our directors, Tony Makepeace, and guidance on construction, materials and sites.

This project will feature a new and experimental method of recording the collection data. NCDF director Byron Bignell has been developing an automated data-logging system to record the volume of water collected by an SFC. The system is solar powered and uses a combination of hardware and software to record data from a tipping rain guage. The information is stored on a memory card internally for later retrieval.

The image shown on the left is an earlier SFC that was installed in 2008 in the evaluation stage for the larger system that is currently in place and operational in eastern Nepal.  We hope to build on this success and add more systems as demand and awareness increases.

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May 2013 – Successful Conference in Yokohama, Japan

The conference in Yokohama was a great opportunity to renew old friendships and to discuss the latest research and news concerning fog, fog collection and dew. It was one of the smaller conferences in terms of numbers, about 120 participants from about 25 countries, but one of the most pleasant due to the constant attention received from our hosts and their volunteer staff.

Professor Manabu Igawa and his superb organizing committee did a wonderful job of seeing that we spent long hours in conference sessions while still finding time for a tour of the Japanese countryside and a relaxing banquet cruise in the Yokohama harbour. For those of you who have not experienced the strong bonds that have developed amongst those working in this specialized community, you are invited to join us at the 7th International Conference on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew in Wroclaw, Poland in 2016.

There is more information on the FogQuest Conference page.

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