Diversifying Water Sources with Atmospheric Water Harvesting to Enhance Water Supply Resilience

Abstract

The unequivocal global warming has an explicit impact on the natural water cycle and resultantly leads to an increasing occurrence of extreme weather events which in turn bring challenges and unavoidable destruction to the urban water supply system. As such, diversifying water sources is a key solution to building the resilience of the water supply system. An atmospheric water harvesting can capture water out of the air and provide a point-of-use water source directly. Currently, a series of atmospheric water harvesting have been proposed and developed to provide water sources under various moisture content ranging from 30–80% with a maximum water collection rate of 200,000 L/day. In comparison to conventional water source alternatives, atmospheric water harvesting avoids the construction of storage and distribution grey infrastructure. However, the high price and low water generation rate make this technology unfavorable as a viable alternative to general potable water sources whereas it has advantages compared with bottled water in both cost and environmental impacts. Moreover, atmospheric water harvesting can also provide a particular solution in the agricultural sector in countries with poor irrigation infrastructure but moderate humidity. Overall, atmospheric water harvesting could provide communities and/or cities with an indiscriminate solution to enhance water supply resilience. Further research and efforts are needed to increase the water generation rate and reduce the cost, particularly via leveraging solar energy.

Moisture Harvesting Efficacy Utilizing Flower-like ZnO Nanostructures Coated on Cotton Fabrics

“…At a constant airflow rate (Q=5 mL/min), higher WC was obtained as the humidity increased at any of the three different temperatures; 30.5, 38.4, and 44.1°C. This was expected according to (Lawrence, 2005;Zhang et al, 2022), who declared that the humidity enhancement would lead to further WC content. On the other hand, temperature rise did not separately conform to an ascending/descending trend in WC.…”

Air to Water Generator Integrated System Real Application: A Study Case in a Worker Village in United Arab Emirates

“…Vapourharvesting processes can be classified into passive and active. The processes that do not need an artificial energy input are defined passive [8], and an example of such an approach is represented by the radiative cooling, such as that employed in the dew plant described in ref. [26], where panels with a particular emissivity and geometry are installed in the open air.…”

“…The main advantage of such a process is that it does not require an artificial energy input. The disadvantages are that: it can be carried out only in particular climates, it strongly depends upon weather conditions and requires large spaces to collect meaningful water quantities, usually represented by a few litres a day for a squared metre [8]. In the active processes, there are comprised AWGs based on a thermodynamic reverse cycle.…”

“…In ref. [8], the possibilities to employ atmospheric water harvesting in order to enhance the water supply resilience were explored. One idea, from this perspective, is the recovery of condensate coming from air conditioning systems.…”

Enhancing fog collection by optimizing wettability combination and fork-row collector arrangement: light and heavy fog

“…The United Nations World Water Development Report jointly published by UN-Water and UNESCO, shows that two to three billion people worldwide are suffering from water scarcity [1]. As a typical form of atmospheric water resource, fog contains a large number of suspended water droplets and ice crystals, making it an alternative water source [2][3][4]. Thus, effective fog collection is promising for the alleviation of water scarcity and has great economic value and social significance, especially in arid and semi-arid regions.…”