Category Archives: Latest News

Latest News, Nepal

Update on Nepal project

The Silauti SFC project has run for six months. The past three months have been very dry but cold weather and have reduced the overall yield to approximately 4.5 litres/meter/day as an average. The data has been split into wet and dry seasons and we can see that the winter, while there’s abundant fog, is not getting the yields that we were seeing in the transitional seasons and summer. Winter data is about 1 litre/day per square meter.

The monitoring equipment has not only been able to survive the location’s climate and conditions, it’s also been recording the data without incident over the past six months.

The data shows an average collection rate of 4 to 5 litres/meter/day. Placement of the collector and the presence of turbulence from the trees on the downward side of the ridge may be factors in the overall results.

The SFC has now been moved to a saddle ridge on the nearby military base for the next six months. This location is 2km from the temple at Silauti and we’re expecting to be able to compare results from the two locations over a full dry and wet season. The ridge is crisscrossed by alternating prevailing winds that bring large, dense banks of fog into the area. The altitude at the new location is similar to the temple at just under 2800m.

Our next newsletter will have more updates on this pilot project

Latest News

Revised & updated operations manual – coming soon!

Screen Shot 2015-12-23 at 2.16.26 PMWe are currently finishing the revised and updated operations manual for 2016 – it will be available for sale on our web site in the next few weeks.

The manual provides detailed information on how to select a site for a fog collection project, information on involving communities, construction guidelines for both small and large fog collectors, as well as background information on scientific, meteorological and geographical factors relevant to the fog collection process.

The entire manual – or specific sections – may be printed in B&W or full colour.

Guatemala, Latest News

Latest News from Guatemala

We are very fortunate to have a new and vigorous young volunteer from Chile. Nicolás Zanetta Colombo, is a geographer from the Centro del Desierto de Aatacama of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He traveled to Guatemala to work at the FogQuest village fog-water collection project in Tojquia in early September.

His main tasks were to interact with the people of the village through group meetings and personal discussions in order to establish their views on the status of the water project and also to assist with some needed repairs to seven of the large fog collectors. The 35 LFCs have now been providing water for 10 years since their construction in 2006 and some of the mesh required replacement or repair. The LFCs produce an average of about 7000 L of fog water a day during the dry season when there is no rain. This water is provided directly to individual homes and farms.

The families remain very grateful to FogQuest for the project and one of the major benefits is the time saved by the families by not having to walk big distances looking for water in the dry season. There is a general motivation within the community to organize in order to maximize the benefits. After the meetings with Nicolás a water committee was organized and endorsed by the families in the village.

Their ideas on how to advance will be reported back to FogQuest and we will continue to work with them in the year to come. There are many social and technical tasks still to undertake but the village needs and the benefits of the water are both very real.

Latest News, Nepal

New Data Logger being tested

This watertight case contains the circuit boards that generate the data stream. It is also Bluetooth enabled, allowing the observer to access the data without having to open it and retrieve a data card.
This watertight case contains the circuit boards that generate the data stream. It is also Bluetooth enabled, allowing the observer to access the data without having to open it and retrieve a data card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order to determine how much water has been collected by a Standard Fog Collector, or indeed any fog collector, one needs a regular record of the water produced. The low cost way to do this is to have an observer measure the amount of water in a container each day. This has advantages and disadvantages. It is something that is discussed in our manual. In locations where it is safe to put instrumentation out with the SFC we have used various measurement techniques over the years. There is always a trade-off between performance and cost. We need low cost and durable data loggers.

The automated data collector is powered by this solar panel. This remarkable and efficient solar panel is courtesy of Voltaic Systems: (www.voltaicsystems.com).
The automated data collector is powered by this solar panel. This remarkable and efficient solar panel is courtesy of Voltaic Systems: (www.voltaicsystems.com).

Byron Bignell, who recently returned from Nepal (as noted below) the spent considerable time and effort developing a new data logging system. We are presently testing this in Nepal and in Kamloops, British Columbia. When we have some definitive results we will present them on this website and in our newsletter.

The single fog collector (SFC) can be seen here temporarily placed on its side to enable access to the top frame bar. The solar panel is mounted at the top of the unit.
The single fog collector (SFC) can be seen here temporarily placed on its side to enable access to the top frame bar. The solar panel is mounted at the top of the unit.
The new and complete assembly can be seen here.
The new and complete assembly can be seen here.

 

 

Latest News, Nepal

Pilot project in Nepal continues

DSCF1440In May of this year FogQuest volunteer Byron Bignell returned to update a pilot project (2013) in the Ilam district of eastern Nepal. This was just after a series of earthquakes had resulted in widespread casualties and damage throughout the country.

The eastern district had been spared the worst tremors and experienced only minor damage.  Thankfully this project was not damaged and is currently operational. Once the collection data have been retrieved and analyzed the decision whether to move forward with a larger system will be made.

An update to this project will be included in our next newsletter.

Latest News, Tanzania

Tanzania pilot project

tanzania

 

Wesley Dowling, from Wyoming in the USA, is working on a new project on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Wes did a training course with FogQuest run by Virginia Carter in Santiago Chile and he is using mesh provided by FogQuest.

His self directed and funded fog collection project will assist people in communities near where he has worked on other water projects over the years.

Latest News

New Volunteer Staff

FogQuest work is carried out by volunteers, with no salaries. A number of people contribute many hours of their time and often contribute significantly financially as well. It is a challenge keeping a small charity operational for 15 years as we have done. What success we have had is in very large part due to our volunteers and to our supporters.

Harry Makepeace in Ontario Canada has been in charge of our shipments of mesh to all parts of the world for some time now. His help and expertise is often not visible to people who request and receive mesh for their fog collectors but it is an essential part of what we do.

Nicolas Zanetta from Chile is a young man with experience using fog collectors at the Atacama Desert Centre. FogQuest built a large fog collector there a number of years ago with help from a Rotary group in Canada. FogQuest of course has a long history of working at different projects in Chile. Nicolas will be travelling to our project in the Guatemala highlands in August to review the project there.

Latest News

Drought in California

American readers of this site will be very aware of the lack of water at present for both the urban areas and for agriculture in California. As a result of this we get many questions about whether the collection of fog water may be a solution or partial solution to the water problems. In fact, it can be a valuable source of water in selected locations along the California coast; however, it will not be the answer to water shortages experienced in cities or for the immense agricultural areas in the interior valleys.

We answer questions as best we can, provide advice on using the small Standard Fog Collector to evaluate fog collection at specific locations, and send out mesh so people can build their own SFCs on their properties. Below in this section is an article about how Chris Fogliatti in the San Francisco Bay Area is working with several groups to make measurements with SFCs. We have also had a long-standing relationship with Prof. Daniel Fernandez in Monterey who is doing scientific studies using SFCs.

Conferences, Latest News

7th International Conference on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew

7th International Conference on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew
To be held 24 to 29 July 2016
Wroclaw, Poland

The organizing committee of the “7th International Conference on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew” has formally announced that the conference will be held at the University of Wroclaw, Poland from 24-29 July 2016.

We have attached a file with the first brochure for the conference. It contains an outline of the sessions to be held and all of the contact information and prices. We also give below the URL for the fog conference site. We encourage all of those interested in the broad themes of the conference to consider attending. You may contact the organizers directly for any additional information you might require.

FogQuest is not a sponsor of the conference nor an organizer but we have a great interest in the success of the meeting.  This conference series started in 1998 in Vancouver, Canada, followed by meetings in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada (2001), Cape Town, South Africa (2004), La Serena, Chile (2007), Münster, Germany (2010) and Yokohama, Japan (2013). Dr. Robert Schemenauer, the Executive Director of FogQuest, started the conference series 17 years ago.

The conference website is at: http://fog-conf.meteo.uni.wroc.pl/

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