Scientists Want to Farm Fog to Solve the Water Crisis
Researchers may have just found a way to establish a renewable water resource in one of the driest places in the world.
Using pieces of mesh, these fog-harvesting machines collect water droplets and funnel them into storage tanks.
Fog-harvesting systems aren't just a small-scale solution; they could be a practical, reliable water system for cities.
For some, foggy days, with their soft, quiet atmosphere, are the perfect reason to curl up and read. But, in addition to a lazy Sunday mood-setter, fog could soon also become a deeply vital resource. According to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, atmospheric water, which of course includes fog, has the potential to serve as an effective water source for crucial uses like irrigation, hydroponic farming, and, probably most important, human consumption.
The study focuses on fog in Alto Hospicio—a city on the edge of the Chilean Atacama Desert, which just so happens to be the driest non-polar place on Earth. On average, the desert gets less than one millimeter of rainfall every year.
City inhabitants depend on massive sub-surface storehouses of water called underground aquifers. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, aquifers occur when porous, water-bearing rock readily transmits water to wells and springs. Think of when you're at the beach and dig so deep in the sand that the hole gets flooded with water. You've just dug a well to expose the water table and aquifer underneath. While this may seem like a reliable water source, the aquifers at Alto Hospicio haven't been recharged in over 10,000 years.
Researchers conducted the study over the course of a year and found that peak fog season fell between August and September in 2024. The fog-harvesting contraption researchers used is extremely simple, using a suspended piece of mesh to intercept the fog. Water droplets form on the fabric and eventually run down to a gutter into storage tanks. According to the researchers, the system is low-cost, passive, and low-maintenance.
After the year-long study, researchers found the fog-harvesting system could produce a daily average of 2.5 liters of water per square meter. During peak season, the fog-harvester has the potential to collect 10 liters of water per square meter a day. Authors of the study suggest that 17,000 square meters of mesh could produce enough to meet the weekly water needs (300,000 liters) of communities that face similar struggles as Alto Hospicio.
'This research represents a notable shift in the perception of fog water use—from a rural, rather small-scale solution to a practical water resource for cities,' said Dr Virginia Carter Gamberini, first co-author of the study, in a Frontiers press release. 'Our findings demonstrate that fog can serve as a complementary urban water supply in drylands where climate change exacerbates water shortages.'
According to the paper, confronting water scarcity could correct the social inequality that non-renewable water systems perpetuate. Water stress affects many regions—including Chile—especially because of urban growth and megadroughts.
'The collection and use of water,' Carter said, 'especially from non-conventional sources such as fog water, represents a key opportunity to improve the quality of life of inhabitants.'
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San Francisco Chronicle
6 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Study says California is overdue for a major earthquake. Does that mean ‘the big one' is coming?
Unlike other earthquake-prone places around the planet, California is overdue for a major quake, according to a recent study. But that doesn't mean a catastrophic event like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is on the verge of striking. 'A fault's 'overdue' is not a loan payment overdue,' said Lucy Jones, founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society and a research associate at the California Institute of Technology, who wasn't part of the work. The new study reported that a large share of California faults have been running 'late,' based on the expected time span between damaging temblors. The researchers compiled a geologic data set of nearly 900 large earthquakes on active faults in Japan, Greece, New Zealand and the western United States, including California. Faults are cracks in the planet's crust, where giant slabs of earth, known as tectonic plates, meet. The Hayward Fault is slowly creeping in the East Bay and moves around 5 millimeters per year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But sometimes plates get stuck and pressure builds. Earthquakes occur when plates suddenly slip, producing a jolt of energy that causes the ground to shake. Scientists study ruptured rock layers deep beneath the surface to estimate when large earthquakes occurred in the past. In the new study, the authors collected data stretching back tens of thousands of years. For a region spanning the Great Basin to northern Mexico, this paleoearthquake record stretched back about 80,000 years. For California, the record extended back about 5,000 years. The scientists used these records to calculate how much time typically passes between large surface-rupturing earthquakes around the planet. The average interval was around 100 years for some sites on the San Andreas Fault; it was 2,100 years on the less famous Compton thrust fault beneath the Los Angeles area. About 45% of the faults analyzed for California are running behind schedule for a major earthquake, meaning that more time has passed since the last large quake on a fault than the historical average. In the other regions studied, this statistic ranged from 9% to 18%. The researchers' analysis only included large surface-rupturing earthquakes. It didn't include the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, which was below the magnitude 7 threshold that the study authors used for quakes on the San Andreas Fault. The authors associated seismic punctuality with slip rates, or how fast the two sides of a fault move past each other. 'Our analysis showed that the faster the faults are moving, the more likely it is that they will appear overdue,' said study author Vasiliki Mouslopoulou, a senior scientist at the National Observatory of Athens, in Greece. In tectonically active California, the San Andreas Fault has a particularly high slip rate. The Pacific and North American plates slide past each other an average of more than inch per year in some spots. 'Faults in California are among the fastest-slipping faults in the world,' Mouslopoulou said, adding that other factors are also probably contributing due to the pattern of chronically late large earthquakes. Previous studies had also shown that seismic activity has been unusually subdued in California, compared with paleorecords. A 2019 study reported that there's been a 100-year hiatus in ground-rupturing earthquakes at a number of paleoseismic sites in California, including on the San Andreas and Hayward faults. The authors of the 2019 study treated large earthquakes at these sites as independent events, akin to flipping pennies and counting how many turn up heads. They calculated a 0.3% probability that there'd be a 100-year hiatus in ground-rupturing quakes across all the California sites. Scientists have suggested that there could be earthquake 'supercycles,' with large quakes occurring in clusters, with less active periods in between. 'There are these longer-term, decadal, century-long ups and downs in the rate of earthquakes,' Jones said. Potentially, California is in a quiet time and large earthquakes are currently less likely. Katherine Scharer, a U.S. Geological Survey research geologist who wasn't part of the new research, commended the authors of the study, explaining that compiling the paleoseismic records was a 'tremendous amount of work' and will enable more scientists to investigate earthquakes. California's relatively sparse big earthquake activity could be connected to the geometry of its faults. While the analyzed faults in California were more or less in line with each other, those in other regions resembled 'a plate of spaghetti,' Scharer said. 'From the study, I think you would say that the main California faults are mechanically different somehow than the averages from these other places,' Glenn Biasi, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, who wasn't part of the new work. Biasi emphasized that it's impossible to say if California's faults are truly overdue for a big earthquake. 'The faults slip on their own schedule and for their own reasons,' Biasi said. Scientists can't accurately predict large earthquakes in advance but paleoearthquake data could help. The authors of the new study found that, excluding California's recent lack of large earthquakes, faults around the entire planet have generally produced surface-rupturing quakes at intervals expected from paleoearthquake and historic records. Considering such data could improve earthquake forecasts, Mouslopoulou said.
USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
The Big One: Is California 'overdue' for a devastating major earthquake?
The Big One: Is California 'overdue' for a devastating major earthquake? A near-certain disaster looms for California, but there are real things people can do to prepare. Here's what to know about the risks. Show Caption Hide Caption California governor signs emergency declaration after quake California's governor says "we're concerned about damage" from magnitude 7 earthquake." It's the unavoidable series of questions Christine Goulet gets every time she's asked what she does for a living. "When is the next big earthquake coming? Do you know where? When should we get ready?" Goulet, director of the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Science Center in Los Angeles, told USA TODAY. "It's almost without fail once they know I study earthquakes. If I received a dollar every time I'm asked, I'd be rich." Goulet has answers, but she can't predict the future. The ominous truth: The Big One could happen any time, and there's more than one possible "Big One." "It's gonna happen. An earthquake could be in a matter of minutes, the next hour, tomorrow, or in a week from now, we can't predict that precisely at this time. We don't know," Goulet said. "But the point in general is we want and need to prepare for them." 'Swaying back and forth': Magnitude 7 earthquake, aftershocks rock California The most authoritative research on the risk to California was conducted in 2015, but little has changed in the past decade. The state will almost certainly face a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake within the next three decades, the USGS concludes. Some of the most at-risk locations are San Francisco and Los Angeles. California's continuous temblor risk coincides with a huge earthquake brewing along the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. San Francisco Bay Area faces high chances of getting a Big One With nearly four dozen faults in the region stretching from Napa to Monterey, the San Francisco Bay Area has a 72% chance of a major quake registering 6.7 magnitude or higher by 2043, USGS researchers previously estimated. The findings also indicate that the Bay Area has a 51% chance of experiencing an earthquake with a magnitude of 7 and a 20% chance of measuring a magnitude of 7.5 or higher within that time frame. "The earthquake threat is very real," said Richard Allen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Berkeley Seismology Lab. "It is a real challenge as we have to take that long-term view, but also not to live our lives in fear." In December, thousands in the Bay Area and across Northern California were worried after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck along a sparsely populated northern coast of California, triggering a tsunami warning across a swath of the West Coast stretching from southern Oregon to San Francisco. Traci Grant, 53, a public relations specialist who felt the quake in San Francisco, told USA TODAY at the time she felt her retrofitted apartment move in slow motion. "It just kept going and going," Grant said. "It was scary and a bit exciting at the same time. It was more of a roll than just shake, shake, shake." Fragile environment: A collapsing glacier destroyed a Swiss village. Is climate change to blame? Less than two hours after the initial quake, some areas experienced 13 different aftershocks, ranging from 5.1 to 3.1, the USGS reported. Two hours after that, at least 39 aftershocks of at least a 2.5 magnitude occured in the region, authorities said. No earthquake-related injuries or major damages were reported. Goulet said if the quake had been directly on land, "the impact would've been more devastating." Goulet said December's quake magnitude conjured up the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. It was a nearly minute-long 7.9 magnitude quake followed by a fire that burned for three days, destroying thousands of buildings. The San Francisco quake killed an estimated 3,000 people and destroyed roughly 80% of the city. It is known as one of the deadliest in U.S. history. Allen also noted the 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake that struck the heart of the Bay Area and killed 30 people. With all the Bay Area faults, Allen said his research shows there's a "two-in-three chance" the Big One could be soon. "We're overdue for a recurrence," Allen said. The last major earthquake in the Bay Area occurred more than a decade ago, when an earthquake rattled Napa Valley in 2014. The 6.0 magnitude quake in Wine Country killed one person and injured 300 people. The incident caused more than $1 billion in damage across Napa and neighboring cities, including Vallejo, California, which took years to rebuild. Then there was the Loma Prieta earthquake that rocked the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989, killing 63 people and injuring nearly 3,800 others. The earthquake disrupted the World Series and damaged the Bay Bridge, Oakland's Cypress Freeway, and swaths of San Francisco. It caused up to $10 billion in damage. "There's this perception that large quakes are frequent, but actually, they are quite rare," Goulet said. "We just don't know when they will happen." Los Angeles is ripe for a Big One as well The Los Angeles area also stands a chance of getting a major earthquake, as there's a 60% chance of a 6.7 magnitude quake within the next 30 years, the USGS said. Additionally, there is also a 46% probability that a 7.0 magnitude earthquake will hit L.A. and a 31% chance a 7.5 magnitude quake will strike during that same period. Allen, the Berkeley seismologist, said Southern California has just as high an earthquake risk compared to its Northern California counterparts. "They face a similar threat, if not higher," Allen said. Goulet added that with Los Angeles and the surrounding areas being so populous (nearly 18.6 million residents according to California Finance Department statistics), there is a high probability for major destruction. She cites the disastrous 6.7 earthquake in Northridge, California, in 1994, which killed 60 people and injured more than 7,000. The devastation also left thousands of buildings and structures collapsed or damaged across Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange and San Bernardino counties. Thousands of residents became homeless as the aftermath caused between $13 billion to $20 billion in damages. "The closer an earthquake is to a large population, the greater the impact will be," Goulet said. Goulet also points to a sequence of earthquakes in 2019 in Ridgecrest, California. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake rattled the city two days after an initial 6.4 magnitude quake. Goulet was among a USGS on-site team researching the first quake when, surprisingly, the second temblor struck. "It was terrifying," Goulet said. "We were there taking measurements and just as we were finishing our work and planning for the next day, the second one occurred about six miles away from us. That was extremely close." Goulet said she remembers reassuring panicked residents that everything would be okay. "That's why we cannot specifically predict earthquakes, when and where they will occur and how big they will be," Goulet added. "But what we can do is collect all of the research that causes earthquakes and the probabilities, which are called probabilistic seismic hazard analysis." Now what?: Federal database that tracked costly weather disasters no longer being updated How to prepare for an earthquake disaster Huge earthquakes have long been an existential crisis for millions along the West Coast, as described in a 2022 USA TODAY article. But experts said there are real things people can do to help them prepare for a major disaster. If you experience an earthquake, Sarah Minson, a research geophysicist with the USGS's Earthquake Science Center in Mountain View, California, advises not to run. "If you feel shaking, you should drop, cover and hold on to protect yourself," Minson said. "Don't go anywhere. Don't run outside. A huge number of the injuries that occur in earthquakes are people stepping on broken glass or trying to run during the shaking and falling down." Allen, the Berkeley seismologist, recommends that households create an earthquake plan, including where they will meet and possibly have a bag or suitcase ready for at least a couple of days. Residents will at least want a flashlight and a way to charge their phone. They should also be prepared to have access to electricity or water cut off for days or weeks. Here are a few practical tips: When trying to use your phone, text – don't call. In a disaster, text messages are more reliable and strain cell networks less. To power your phone, you can cheaply buy a combination weather radio, flashlight and hand-crank charger to keep your cell running even without power for days. A cash reserve is good to have, USGS seismologist Lucy Jones previously said. You'll want to be able to buy things, even if your credit card doesn't work for a time. Simple things like securing bookshelves can save lives. Downloading an early warning app can give you precious moments to protect yourself in the event of a big quake. Buying earthquake insurance can protect homeowners. And taking part in a yearly drill can help remind you about other easy steps you can take to prepare. Contributing: Elizabeth Wiese and Joel Shannon
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
Big problem with plant sold at Bunnings
A popular garden plant sold at Bunnings is even more invasive and potentially dangerous to Australia's natural environment than originally thought, new research has revealed. La Trobe scientists, writing in the Frontiers journal, warn that gazania daisies, a brightly coloured ornamental plant sold in nurseries nationwide, is a 'highly-invasive plant' that is beginning to impact grain production and grasslands across southern Australia. The plant can germinate and thrive in almost all conditions, the report shows, regardless of moisture, temperature or salinity levels. 'Due to its flexible growth requirements, gazania is now widespread and naturalised in a variety of habitats including coastal sand dunes, stream banks, wastelands, open grasslands, along roadsides and on cultivated and irrigated sites,' the report states. 'While gazania has long been considered as an environmental weed in Australia, a trend of 'jumping the fence' has been observed in recent years, infesting grain crop production fields in low-rainfall regions of South Australia. 'The presence of gazania in cropping fields is proving highly problematic, with farmers finding it difficult to control with common herbicides.' The researchers warn the weed is now 'rapidly spreading' across Australia and urgent long-term management strategies are needed to control the invasion. Gazania is native to South Africa and was introduced into Australia in the 1950s and 1970s. Invasive Species Council advocacy manager Imogen Ebsworth said the daisies should be banned from sale immediately. 'Gazanias are the perfect example of an escaped invasive garden plant that needs to be banned from sale,' she said. 'They are already banned in South Australia, but it's clear we need them pulled nationally. 'I urge the nursery industry to act on this new evidence and stop selling it … we've seen this story unfold far too many times. Ornamental plants that turn into unstoppable weeds, costing us billions in control efforts and wiping out native species in the process.' The council estimates more than 30,000 plant species have been imported into Australia for gardening, but 'fewer than a quarter' have been assessed nationally for their weed risk. Weeds cost the country more than $5bn a year in agricultural and environmental damage, the council said, with 'escaped' ornamental plants making up more than 70 per cent of the country's environmental weeds. Garden plants can escape and germinate in the wild via garden waste, lawn clippings and seed dispersal. Bunnings continues to sell gazanias, NewsWire has confirmed. According to the retail giant, each state and territory has its own list of declared weeds and laws and regulations for invasive weeds. The plants Bunnings sells across its stores differ depending on where they are sold and their declaration status. 'Like many nurseries and retailers, we sell a wide range of locally sourced plants across our stores and we work hard to create an assortment that caters to customer preferences and demand,' Bunnings director of merchandise Cam Rist said. 'As always, we closely follow all relevant local biosecurity regulations and the advice of regulators about the plants we sell.' The plant is also sold at other nurseries, including online marketplaces. The council argues 'self-regulation' has not worked and wants a federal government response. 'We've spent decades relying mainly on self-regulation, which just doesn't work,' Ms Ebsworth said. 'You can still legally buy plants that are banned in neighbouring states or overseas. 'Unless governments act, we'll keep selling the next lantana, the next gazania, straight into our backyards and bushland.' Environment Minister Murray Watt has been contacted for comment.
