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By CCTV Dan Collyns
Lima, the capital of Peru, is the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo. It gets just a tiny amount of rainfall each year. But for some parts of the city, what they lack in rain, they make up for in fog. Many of the residents don’t have water on tap, so they’re learning how to harvest it from the air.
It’s hard to believe but this is part of Peru’s capital city.
It gets greener the higher you go until near the top of these fog-shrouded hills you can barely hear the hum of traffic or human voices.
For nine months a year, Los Tunales de Asall, looks like this.
The people who live here may be far from the water mains, but they live in a fine mist of H2O.
Lima, the capital of Peru, is the second largest desert city in the
world after Cairo. It gets just a tiny amount of rainfall each year.
But for some parts of the city, what they lack in rain, they make up
for in fog. Many of the residents don’t have water on tap, so they’re
learning how to harvest it from the air.
Dan Collyns of Lima said "They began as an experiment about four years ago and now these strange structures - like huge abandoned volley ball nets - are starting to cover the foggy hills here in the south of Lima and they’re giving a lifeline to some of the city’s poorest residents. "
The mist is trapped in this fine mesh draped on these 4 by 8 meter frames.
Each net can trap up to 150 liters of water a day.
The materials are cheap and durable and each net with a water tank costs less than 800 U.S. dollars.
Artemio Alfaro runs a farm using this water.
He can grow vegetables all year round to feed his family, supply his restaurant and sell at the market.
Artemio Alfaro, Lima resident, said, "We’re saving at least half of our money by having these nets. It changed our lives."
Artemio has even tapped into the lucrative business of supplying health products.
He grows Aloe Vera, famed for its rejuvenating properties, and sells it to local businesses.
With funding from the United States development organisation, USAID, 20 of these nets have been built.
Now Abel Cruz, who runs a water concern group wants to aim higher.
Abel Cruz, founder of Peruvians Without Water, said, "Our project now is to build 200 fog nets across the whole of Peru, because we’ve demonstrated that this works, that there’s water in the fog and we can get it. All you need is a little bit of ingenuity and a little bit of investment. "
More than a million Lima residents still don’t have piped water and pay ten times more for it than those that do.
Every year thousands more migrants swell the city’s peripheries, too.
Quenching their thirst will require more innovations like these.
中国公共新闻摘编：GAN JADE |
