Sustainable Development Action Canadian Success Stories

Water

• Fog Harvesting Initiatives
• FogQuest Sustainable Water Solutions
• Global Environment Monitoring System Water Program
• Managing Shared Waters Conference

Fog Harvesting: The Foggiest Idea for Collecting Water

There is an ever-increasing need for fresh water in developing countries for drinking and agriculture, and fog is one way to get it.

Fog harvesting can be used as a resource where traditional sources of water-surface water, wells, or rainwater collection-do not meet the needs of the people. Climate and topography are also factors for successful fog harvesting. The costs are low, the technology is simple, the water is of very good quality, and the source is sustainable for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Fog droplets are very small and will go where the wind blows them. Getting these droplets is fairly straightforward, but not necessarily simple. You need a vertical surface through which the wind can blow as it leaves the droplets behind. Fog collectors are made of frames that hold netting of various sizes in a vertical plane.

Fog harvesting is not the ultimate answer to the world's water shortages, but it is an example of how we can work with what nature gives us to complement other water-supply systems. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has been involved in various fog-harvesting projects, mostly within countries in the Americas, such Ecuador and Peru. Fog-harvesting initiatives have also been implemented in parts of Africa.

For more information:
2nd International Conference on Fog and Fog Collection (July 2002)

FogQuest Sustainable Water Solutions

In many parts of the world there is negligible rainfall, and conventional sources of water are either unavailable or too expensive to be practical. In these arid environments, novel approaches to the supply of water in rural areas must be considered.

Fog collection is a technology that was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by three Canadian government departments, Environment Canada, the International Development Research Centre, and the Canadian International Development Agency, working with institutions in Chile. The successful pilot project led to subsequent projects in South America, Africa and Asia.

Fog collectors are inexpensive, passive devices that each produce 200 to 600 liters of fresh water a day by collecting the tiny wind blown water droplets present in fog. Arrays of collectors produce an average of 5,000 to 15,000 liters of water per day. The low-technology fog collectors are well suited to providing water to villages in the dry mountainous parts of developing countries. The technology is sustainable, environmentally friendly, and can be cared for and expanded upon by the community members.

Frequent requests for projects to provide water in places where conventional sources such as wells, rivers and pipelines were not available, as well as tremendous interest in the 1998 and 2001 International Conferences on Fog and Fog Collection, led to the formation of FogQuest. An innovative, international, non-governmental, and non-profit organization set up in Canada's province of Ontario, FogQuest implements and promotes the environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable use of fog, rain and dew as sustainable water resources for people in arid regions of developing countries.

For more information:
FogQuest

Global Environment Monitoring System Water Program

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Environment Monitoring System Water Program (GEMS/Water) is a multi-faceted water science program focussed on understanding freshwater quality issues. Currently operating from Canada's National Water Research Institute in Burlington, the implementation of the program involves several UN agencies active in the water sector and a number of organizations around the world.

Major activities in the program include international co-operative data programs and monitoring, data and information sharing, global and regional assessments, capacity building and technical expertise, advice to governments and international agencies, information products, and partnerships. Since the early 1990s, the program has also been providing practical guidance through a series of handbooks on different aspects of water resources management, including the collective experience and consensus opinion of experts.

Canada's partnership with UNEP in the GEMS/Water program includes a target to increase the number of member countries so that within 5 years, 35 additional developing countries will be participants.

For more information:
GEMS/Water Program
National Water Research Institute
United Nations Environment Programme

Managing Shared Waters Conference

The world's coasts, both marine and freshwater, are in crisis. Today, more than half of the world's population live within 150 kilometres of a coast, placing increasing residential, industrial, and recreational demands on these valuable and vulnerable ecosystems.

Four hundred practitioners and stakeholders from freshwater and marine communities in 30 countries met in Hamilton, Canada at the Managing Shared Waters Conference in June 2002, to recommend actions for effective management of transboundary coastal ecosystems and shared waters.

In their closing statement, participants agreed that there is an urgent need to develop capacity in four areas: education, training and public awareness raising; institutional and participatory frameworks; measuring and understanding coastal ecosystems; and infrastructure, products and services. In addition, they recognized that the future potential for the sustainability of freshwater and marine coastal ecosystems will be compromised unless all sectors of society increase their efforts to work together. To that end, they urged the North American Great Lakes Community to continue to innovate institutional arrangements and other mechanisms, and to provide leadership in capacity building and sharing best practices.

For more information:
Managing Shared Waters Conference
Great Lakes Information Network