'There is always a small cloud near the top of the tree, the Garoe lets some drops of water drip down, where men channel them to a modest fountain; thanks to this fountain, human beings and animals live through extreme droughts.'
Dominican brother Bartolomé de las Casas in 'History of the Indias'.
NEWS Eroding ecosystem puts global goals at risk, warns Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report
Humans have made unprecedented changes to ecosystems in recent decades to meet growing demands for food, fresh water and energy. These changes have helped to improve the lives of billions, but at the same time they weakened nature's ability to deliver other key services such as purification of air and water or protection from disasters.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report, a landmark study co-sponsored and launched recently by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Bank, and other international scientific and development partners, reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth - such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests - are being degraded or used unsustainably.
The study, conducted over four years by 1,300 experts from 95 countries, warns that 'Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies continue to be degraded.'
MA released several versions of the report to adapt to different publics and priorities.
Read the full press release
Read the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report [PDF format - 6.45 MB]
EVENTSTokyo Asia Pacific Sky Water Forum
1-7 August 2005, Tokyo, Japan - Organizer: Tokyo Asia Pacific Sky Water Forum Executive Committee 3rd International Conference on Wadi Hydrology
5-8 September 2005, Sana'a, Yemen - Organizers: UNESCO's Regional Office for Science and Technology for the Arab Region, Cairo Office, in cooperation with the Ministry of Water and Environment of the Republic of Yemen 11th World Lake Conference
31 October - 4 November 2005, Nairobi, Kenya - Organizers: Ministry of Water and Irrigation of Kenya and International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC) Climatic and Anthropogenic Impacts on the Variability of Water Resources
22-24 November 2005, Montpellier, France - Organizers: UMR Hydrosciences Montpellier (France), UNESCO and WMO 5th FRIEND World Conference - Water Resource Variability: Processes, Analyses and Impacts
27 November - 1 December 2005, Havana, Cuba - Organizers: Convened jointly by UNESCO-IHP, Latin America and Caribbean AMIGO/ FRIEND, Cuban IHP National Hydrological Committee, German IHP/HWRP National Committee, Institute of Meteorology of Cuba, National Institute of Water Resource of Cuba, IAHS and WMO
DID YOU KNOW...? FACTS ABOUT FOG- Fog is a hydrometeor consisting of a visible aggregate of minute water droplets (or ice crystals), suspended in the atmosphere near the Earth's surface, generally reducing the horizontal visibility at the Earth's surface level to less than 1 km.
- Water droplets are only about 0.01 millimetres in diameter. A dense fog contains about 1,200 visible drops per cubic centimetre of empty space - barely enough water to wet an object's surface.
- Historically, in the Atacama Desert (Chile), both dew and fog were collected by means of a pile of stones, arranged so that the condensation would drip to the inside of the base of the pile, where it was shielded from the day's sunshine. The same technique was employed in Egypt, where the collected water was stored underground.
- During a stop on El Hierro Island (Canarias) on his way to the Americas, Bartolomé de las Casas took interest in the aborigine Bimbachos' culture, which was already disappearing in the XVI century. The Bimbachos devoted a cult to a tree, the Garoe (Ocotea foetens), which supplied them with abundant fresh water. This 'holy tree' was capable of capturing the water held in the mist and drizzle, which allowed for agriculture in an area with very low rainfall. The Garoe was uprooted by a hurricane in 1610. Curiously, its disappearance coincided with that of the Bimbachos culture on El Hierro Island.
- The water for the 350 residents of the coastal village of Chungungo (north of Chile) had to be trucked in once or twice a week from a town 40 km away. Along the coast of Chile, there is a persistent and extensive cloud deck (camanchaca) that rarely results in rain but creates fog in the slopes and peaks of the mountains that intercept it. A group of scientists have developed a method of harnessing the camanchacas as a source of water: the fog moisture is caught using collectors that resemble oversized volleyball nets. As fog passes through the nets, beads of water form on the mesh. The water runs down the nets into gutters that drain into a 100,000-litre reservoir. The fog-catchers supply the village with an average of 10,000 litres of water every day.
- Every morning the Namib fog beetle (Onymacris unguicularis) makes an arduous journey to the top of a sand dune, where he turns his body into the wind, straightens out his rear legs and lowers his head. The fog rolling in from the sea gradually collects on his back, forming droplets of water, which glide downwards and hang from the insect's mouthparts. In this way, this beetle is always assured of a healthy morning drink, despite being miles from the nearest freshwater.
- 25% to 40% of the water in coastal redwood forests (Sequoia sempervirens) comes from fog. The trees get some of that water through their roots, when fog-saturated leaves and branches drip water onto the ground.
- About half of the 90,000 known higher plant species in the Neotropics, the world's richest flora, are found in the montane zone.
Information from: National Snow and Ice Data Centre webpage (United States of America), Society of American Foresters webpage, Science in Africa website.
PUBLICATIONS RELATED TO FOGGeographical Description of Three Fog Ecosystems in the Atacama Coastal Desert of Chile [PDF format - 384 KB] By Pilar Cereceda, Raquel Pinto, Horacio Larrain, Pablo Osses, Martín Farías. 2004 During the past century the precipitation measured at the Atacama (Chile) coastal desert was less than 2 millimetres as an annual average. These are extremely difficult conditions for vegetation to grow and develop. However, some small ecosystems or oases can still be found at the Cordillera de la Costa. They are maintained with fog water. In almost 7 years of measurements at the oasis of Alto Patache, an average of 7,8 L/m²/d of fog water was collected by Standard Fog Collectors. These fog oases are located in a mega cliff and in mountains close to the sea. They can also be found farther inland along fog corridors. The Alto Patache ecosystem shows a variety of shrub and herb species, depending on altitude, type and orientation of relief, plateau or cliff. The Pajonales ecosystem is monospecific, Tillandsia landbeckii (Bromeliaceae) being the only species recognized. The Chipana oasis is composed mainly by cacti Eulychnia iquiquensis in association with shrub and herb species. These oases have been studied from a biogeographical point of view. The results show that the oases studied lie at altitudes between 400 and 1,200 m.a.s.l. Altitude, relief exposure to the predominant winds and substrate are significant factors of presence and vitality of vegetation.
Access the full manual [PDF format - 384 KB] Fog-water Harvesting along the West Coast of South Africa: A Feasibility Study [PDF format - 1.39 MB] By Jana Olivier. 2002 Many parts of the West Coast of South Africa experience severe water shortages throughout the year. Despite the meager rainfall, however, the region is subject to a high incidence of fog which might provide water for water-poor communities. This paper investigates the fog water potential of the area. Since fog water collection rates are to some extent dependent upon the spatial and temporal characteristics of fog, these aspects were investigated. Pilot fog collectors were erected at six West Coast sites and the water collection rates measured over a three to four year period. It was found that the incidence of fog is mostly confined to the coastal zone below the 200 m contour line with fog frequency decreasing with latitude within this zone. The highest water collection rates were recorded at Cape Columbine where volumes in excess of 2.5 l/m² of collecting surface can be expected to be collected per day. Of this, approximately 90% is due to fog deposition alone, while rainfall contributes to the remaining 10%.
::Access the full document [PDF format - 1.39 MB] Obtaining Freshwater by Non Traditional Methods [PDF format - 476 KB, in Spanish] By Roberto Román. © Ciencia al Día Internacional, 1999. Freshwater is a scarce resource on a planetary basis. There are, however, freshwater sources still to be tapped. This paper reviews work that is being done to capture freshwater from dynamic fogs.
It first presents the conditions that promote the formation of these fogs and the different studies conducted since the early sixties to trap water. This paper ends with a brief analysis of the future perspectives of this water source.
Access the full document [PDF format - 476 KB, in Spanish]
LINKS RELATED TO FOGMountain Cloud Forest Initiative Tropical montane cloud forests are a rare type of evergreen mountain forest found in tropical areas where local climatic conditions cause cloud and mist to be regularly in contact with the forest vegetation. These forests support ecosystems of distinctive floristic and structural form and contain a disproportionately large number of the world's endemic and threatened species.
The Mountain Cloud Forest Initiative (a UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, UNESCO and IUCN initiative) aims to stimulate wider cooperation and greater action to promote the conservation, restoration and sustainable development of mountain cloud forests everywhere. Their website provides maps of cloud forest distribution and regional overviews of the threats they face. Gobabeb Research Centre The Gobabeb research centre is located in the Namib Naukluft Park (Namibia). Gobabeb and the surrounding research area present ideal research locations because the area presents several ecological systems including the sand dunes, gravel plains, riverbeds, both within and outside the fog belt.
As most of the water received by the ecosystem comes from fog, this source of water it vital to the Namib's many inhabitants. Fog has therefore been examined over the past 60 years both from an ecosystem and a sociological point of view. The testing of various fog collecting nets has recently been in the forefront of Gobabeb's fog project. It is hoped that the Topnaar community can utilize these nets to supplement their water supply. FOG (Hong Kong Observatory) This Hong Kong Observatory web page proposes simple explanations and figures to answer some common questions about fog, such as:
- What is fog?
- What is the difference between fog and mist?
- What causes the fog commonly seen in springtime?
- What is the relationship between atmospheric stability and fog?
- What are the effects of fog on our daily life? FogQuest FogQuest is a non-profit, registered charity dedicated to planning and implementing water projects for rural communities in developing countries. They utilize fog collectors as well as rainfall collectors to make optimum use of natural atmospheric sources of water. ARCHIVESAccess the newsletter archives SUBSCRIBE & UNSUBSCRIBE For contributions or comments, contact the editor at waterportal@unesco.org
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