by Chanaral, Chile (Reuters) -in Chile’s dry Atacama, the driest desert in the world, try to use producers and researchers from the air themselves to breed salt houses and lemons, with a network used to catch moisture drops from the fog.
“We are growing completely with fog water in the driest desert in the world,” said Orlando Rojas, President of Atacama Fog Catcher Association, Reuters near Chanaral in Atacama, where some areas do not see any rains for years.
“We had other plants that did not achieve any results, which is why we led to making salad.”
Researchers of the UC Atacama Desert Center start an open access web mapping platform to show the location of the areas with the potential for fog water harvest in the country, and try to open these dry areas for cultivation.
“We know his potential and we know that it can be an option and a solution for various water needs in different areas in which there is considerable water shortage,” said Camilo del Rio, director of UC Atacama Desert Center.
In the middle of the barren rock and dry white sand, the system uses a network that is hung between two poles, which catches the small amount of moisture in the air and turns it into droplets that are collected and stored in water tanks.
“We are able to collect 1,000 to 1,400 liters of water in these inhospitable locations, where we are clearly not preferred by nature in other ways,” said Rojas in a region in which lemon trees also grow out of the collected water.
“We have the potential for life, namely this water resource. After learning something about this project, we did not stop because it is of crucial importance for human livelihood.”
Mario Segovia, also from the fog suit group, said that the water collected from the air in the air.
“The harvest does not look bad, it is a super healthy food, pure nutrients that are organic,” he said. “They are in a water state with nutrients because this water of the fog catcher is completely neutral and no minerals, no chlorine, has nothing.”
(Reporting by Rodrigo Gutierrez; writing by Adam Jourdan; editorial team of Nia Williams)
