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