See Peruvian 'cloud catchers' harvest water from fog

Sunday, May 22, 2016, 7:04 PM - With no access to running water, farming was quite difficult in the small town of Villa Lourdes in rural Peru. After many arid growing seasons, villagers turned to a natural solution: fog.

Farmers have built 30 large nylon nets called 'Atrapanieblas' on a hillside that capture condensation from the fog, harvesting about 200 to 300 liters of water per day from each panel. The water is stored in tanks nearby and used to irrigate crops.

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The video below is part of a series called Power Hackers, published by the company Makeshift. It shows how the nets work. The method is both cost-effective and energy efficient. Harvesting fog is also useful in coastal areas where groundwater is too saline for most uses without treatment.

Fresh drinking water is hard to come by in the town, especially in the winter when water trucks deliver it only three times a week from the capital city of Lima.

"The first time I came to Villa Lourdes, the fog nets didn't exist. It was an arid zone," explains cloud catcher Maria Teresa Avalos Cucho in the video. "It was interesting for us because I never thought fabric nets could trap water."

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The atrapanieblas are constantly maintained by a team of residents who visit the nets three times a week to see if they have moved.

This is what we call some low-tech ingenuity.

Watch more: Science Behind The Weather -- Freezing fog