The Quality of Fog Water Collected for Domestic and Agricultural Use in Chile

Abstract

Abstract One exciting new application of meteorology is the prospect of using high-elevation fogs as an and land's water resource. This has now become reality in northern Chile where a pilot project has used 50 fog collectors to generate an average of 7200 1 of water per day during three drought years. The chemical composition of the fog water is of primary importance and is examined in this paper. A small, carefully cleaned fog-water collector was used at the site (elevation 780 m) to study the incoming fog (cloud). The ion and trace-element concentrations met Chilean and the World Health Organization's (WHO) drinking-water standards. The pH values, however, were at times extremely low. Samples from 1987 and 1988 were consistent with those from the larger dataset in 1989. The lowest observed pH was 3.46. The acidity was associated with high concentrations (89%) of excess sulfate in the 15 fog-water samples (based on Cl− as the seawater tracer element). The NO3−/SO4− equivalents ratio for the fog samples ...