The Large Fog Collector Project

Using mesh fog-water collectors, freshwater can be harvested for irrigation or drinking. Farms in coastal California and other foggy places can learn to harvest fog water for immediate use as irrigation water by deploying large fog collectors (LFCs). The overall purpose of the project is to obtain information on the quantity of water that can be practically obtained from LFCs on a central California farm, what considerations maximize the volume of water collected per m2 of mesh, and how to best use the water collected from fog to protect perennial plants and orchards in times of extreme drought.

How Foggy Was It?

Real-time fog collection data from two large collectors installed at the UCSC farm. Clicking on any of the colors above removes it from the graph. The Atmos 41 is a standard rain gauge, so it will register data only when there is rain. The other two are connected to the fog water collection troughs. The units are mm of precipitation. To convert to volume in mL, multiply the number by 20.1. Each increment of time is 5 minutes.

Thanks to Olivia Driscoll for helping to set up this data feature for the website.