Chapter 65

Fog Water Harvesting Through Smart

Façade for a Climate Resilient Built
Environment

Maria Giovanna Di Bitonto, Alara Kutlu, and Alessandra Zanelli

Abstract Water emergency is one of the terrible effects of climate change; it is

defined as the Blue gold of twenty-first century. In this scenario, fog stands as a poten-
tial alternative water resource. Many territories are affected by fog phenomenon; here
fog collectors have been developed to extract water from humid mass of air. The aim
of this paper is to explore the application of this technology in building sector. The
Large Fog Collector is the device commonly used for these projects; it is a textile
structure, composed of a mesh, two poles and cables. The exploitation of conven-
tional water resources implies a massive distribution system with significant energy
consumption and costs. Otherwise, fog harvesting is a passive system; it relieves the
stress upon freshwater resources. Nowadays, fog collectors are low tech devices, and
fog harvesting projects are commonly developed in arid areas for agricultural and
reforestation purposes. Nevertheless, taking advantage of the vertical development
of the device, this textile structure shall be integrated in façade, to promote resilient
constructions and make buildings water self-sufficient. The paper explores the design
criteria for the development of a novel concept of smart water collecting façade. It
can promote also shading effect, reducing the use of cooling system, energy demand,
so lowering the ecological footprint. Depending on fog Liquid Water Content, the
collected water can be used for the irrigation of green roofs, gardens or in an optimal
scenario also for domestic use. The analysis of local weather data is crucial to extend
the territories where this system can be applied; but, more important, the improvement
of the device’s technology is essential to implement it in new application fields.

Keywords Fog harvesting · Water self-sufficiency · Smart façade · Textile

architecture · Resilient construction

M. G. Di Bitonto (B) · A. Kutlu · A. Zanelli

Polytechnic University of Milan, Milan, Italy
e-mail: mariagiovanna.dibitonto@polimi.it
A. Kutlu
e-mail: alara.kutlu@mail.polimi.it
A. Zanelli
e-mail: alessandra.zanelli@polimi.it

© The Author(s) 2023 725

E. Arbizzani et al. (eds.), Technological Imagination in the Green and Digital Transition,
The Urban Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29515-7_65
726 M. G. Di Bitonto et al.

65.1 Introduction

Water scarcity is the consequence of many interrelated factors. First, the changing
of human habits is enhancing climate change, which provokes an alteration on water
cycle, so the spread of desertification and unpredictable rain events. In addition, the
shift to a more meat base diet is modifying land use, therefore local ecosystems.
Furthermore, trade globalization and increasing industrial production contribute to
an economic shift towards more resource-intensive consumption patterns. Moreover,
during last centuries earth faced a great grown in global population. The presented
factors reflect their footprint on global freshwater consumption and availability; water
is becoming a scarce resource. In fact, freshwater for agricultural, industrial and
domestic use has increased nearly six-fold since 1900 (Ritchie and Roser 2017).
The global use of water is divided in three sectors that are Agriculture, Industry and
Municipality. In this scenario of water demand increase and supply decrease, fog
stands as an alternative source of water. Fog water has been documented to be an
efficient source in many territories that are affected by fog phenomenon (Klemm et al.
2012). Fog harvesting projects are usually developed in rural areas for agricultural
purpose; instead, fog collectors’ potentiality should be explored to integrate water
supply also in industrial and domestic sector. The aim is identifying chances of
improvement and possibility of generating a positive impact on urban water resource
management. For the mentioned purpose, the device’s structure should be elaborated,
to develop it for urban environment and integrate it in building design. At first, the
fog harvesting project requirements should be analysed, and therefore, the design
criteria should be individuated. Fog water by itself probably cannot fulfil the water
demand, but it could release the stress upon conventional overexploited freshwater
resources.

65.2 Water Scarcity

Even though water covers almost 3/4 of the earth’s surface, the 97.4% is saline water,
while the amount of freshwater available for human consumption corresponds just to
2.5% (Gleick 1993). Moreover, water is not equally present around the planet; this is
due to natural climatic conditions, and to overexploitation for anthropic use (Pereira
et al. 2009). However, it is not even equally distributed; in fact, in many cases the
hydric issues are caused by bad water management. The main sources of freshwater
are surface waters and underground basins. To use this water, it should be extracted
and, after being treated, it requires a distribution system, which functioning depends
on energy supply. Furthermore, the consumption is not uniform; water availability
directly determines per capita consumption. In fact, although WSI index states about
100 m3 of water per capita a year (m3 /c/year) as optimum standard of living (Falken-
mark 1986), Greece’s water withdrawal per capita in 2018 was 962 m3 /c/year, while
65 Fog Water Harvesting Through Smart Façade for a Climate Resilient … 727

Israel’s was 132.7 m3 /c/year (OECD 2022). Moreover, the sources are often contam-
inated (Vörösmarty et al. 2005). Although water is considered a renewable resource,
the consumption is not adequate. In addition to the current water constraint, the world
population is predicted to grow; for this reason water demand is forecasted to rise by
55% according to UNESCO (United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
Secretariat (WWAP) 2016).

65.3 Fog Harvesting

Fog is a meteorological phenomenon that consists of water droplets suspended in

the air. From a physical point of view, when a saturated mass of air, reaches its
dew point, fog is generated. Fog can be classified on its forming process; it can
be by radiative heat loss, by the mixing of two parcels of saturated air initially at
two different temperatures, and by an ascend and resultant cooling of an air parcel
(Roach 1994). Many territories worldwide are affected by the fog phenomenon; many
of them are in arid areas, while others in territories that will face the hydric crisis in
the upcoming years. Since ancient time, in arid fog oasis, the populations adapted
to those extreme conditions; here some sort of fog collector have been developed.
Some of fog harvesting projects have been mapped, in Fig. 65.1 (Klemm et al. 2012).
Usually, those projects are realized in undeveloped areas of rural environment for
agricultural purpose (Morichi et al. 2018). Nevertheless, some urban environments
are affected by fog phenomenon, and they should take advantage of this alternative
resource.

65.3.1 Fog Collector

Fog water is obtained through the fog collector; it is a passive system, made of textile
structure. Those collectors must be orientated towards the main wind direction, to
optimize the collection; in fact, wind is one of the determining factors for the process.
Therefore, when fog is pushed by the wind towards the mesh, the water droplets
get deposited on the mesh’s filaments and when they reach a certain weight and
dimension they flow down, where they are collected by a gutter and then stored in
tanks (de Dios Rivera 2011). During last century many types of fog collector have
been developed, they are generally classified on the type of structure, which can
be two or three dimensional. The model most used worldwide, is the Large Fog
Collector (LFC); it’s a bidimensional structure (Holmes et al. 2015), designed by
Schemenauer and Joe (1989). It is composed by a mesh, two poles and tensors; its
collection panel is of 40 m2 , made by a double layer of Raschel mesh. Generally,
for these experiments the Standard Fog Collector (SFC) is used, it consists of a
rigid metal frame that measures 1 m × 1 m; this frame is supported by two poles at
2 m above ground level, to reach stronger winds (Schemenauer and Cereceda 1994).
728 M. G. Di Bitonto et al.

Fig. 65.1 Fog harvesting projects map, elaboration of the authors based on Klemm et al. (2012)
and Schemenauer and Cereceda (1994)

The three-dimensional collectors are still not widely explored. Moreover, a three-
dimensional device can provide more collection rate for the same soil occupation,
but the additional mesh layers permit to collect the fog droplets that already passed
through the first mesh. The three-dimensional structures can differ in shape; they can
be cylindrical as in Warka Water project, or parallelepiped as in Nieblagua’s case
(Fig. 65.2).

65.4 Novel Fog Harvesting System

65.4.1 Fog Harvesting Project

In order to develop a fog harvesting project, firstly the climatic conditions of the site
should be analysed; in fact, wind speed, wind direction, mean humidity, temperature
and Liquid Water Content (LWC) (Holmes et al. 2015) are determining factors for
the fog collector disposition and dimensioning. In fact, the collectors should be
oriented perpendicularly towards the main wind direction, and generally more wind
speed imply more water collection (Schemenauer and Cereceda 1994). Moreover,
due to the vertical development and the lightness of the traditional fog collector, the
possibility to integrate this device into a smart membrane façade is under consider
65 Fog Water Harvesting Through Smart Façade for a Climate Resilient … 729

Fig. 65.2 Nieblagua structure—three-dimensional parallelepiped fog collector. Source Photo by

the Author

(Caldas et al. 2018). To do so, the structure of the fog collector must be conceived to
integrate it on a building. Furthermore, the novel fog collector should be dimensioned
referring to the water demand of such building. The first step to take, to analyse the
fog water potentiality of the selected area, is the development of a test campaign.
At least a Standard Fog Collector (SFC) (Schemenauer and Cereceda 1994) should
be installed for a period, preferably a year or more, to have a mean collection for
each season. Several for harvesting projects have been developed which resulted in
different collection rates, for example in Cerro Moreno the amount is 8.26 l/m2 /d,
while in Falda Verde is 1.43 l/m2 /d, the amounts refer to the year average (Larrain et al.
2002; Bitonto et al. 2020). Once, the collection property has been stated, depending
on the water demand of the building, the smart façade should be dimensioned. The
main wind direction could vary during the year, for this reason the façade should be
adaptable to any condition. Therefore, flexibility should be one of the main aspect
of the smart membrane façade development. Depending on the quantity of water
collected on each season, it can be used for domestic purposes, when fog events are
abundant, or for watering a green roof or garden in other seasons. The quantity of
fog water collection varies from site to site, depends also on the season, and on the
structure and mesh used for the fog collector.
730 M. G. Di Bitonto et al.

65.4.2 Application Field: Built Environment

The construction sector is one of the most impacting for the environment, and its
footprint is progressively increasing in carbon dioxide emissions, causing rise in air
temperatures, and consuming a large amount of water (European Parliament, Council
of the European Union 2010). For this reason, the European commission has stated
some guidelines to reach the goal of Near Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) by 2020
(European Parliament, Council of the European Union 2010). Moreover, in 2015,
also the United Nations stated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (General
Assembly 2015). Some of these goals can be reached through the application of a
novel smart envelope on buildings. The proposed experimental envelope is composed
by a double façade, where the first layer is the main closure of the building, while
the external one is the smart mesh. This multipurpose textile façade is a passive and
‘Km 0’ system, because it doesn’t require energy to collect or distribute water, and is
located where the users are, unlike the traditional hydric systems. Furthermore, since
the external skin is composed by a mesh, it can provide shading. In fact, shading a
window during summer can reduce the demand of cooling system, which implies
notable energy consumption, and related emissions. If the envelope is combined also
with vegetation, the façade can also provide purification of the air, given both by the
filter mesh and the absorption properties of the plants. It is important to underline
that, depending on the location’s characteristics, fog is not always present along the
year. The proposed device refers to the Mediterranean condition, where water can be
collected mostly during winter nights and early mornings, while the shading effect
is required just during summer days (Fig. 65.3); moreover, each part of the envelope
is more suitable for specific functions (Fig. 65.4).
Nevertheless, this device is a model that can be applied and adapted to any fog oasis
referring to external conditions and users’ needs. In particular, the design method-
ology of this smart façade is based both on the requirements of the fog collector
previously stated, together with requirements of building envelopes. Therefore, it

Fig. 65.3 Weather

conditions and envelope
functions—relation between
the weather conditions and
the respective envelope
functions along the day in a
typical year. Source Graphic
by the Author
65 Fog Water Harvesting Through Smart Façade for a Climate Resilient … 731

Fig. 65.4 Envelope requirements—water collection, shading and vegetation are arranged on a
specific part of the envelope, due to users’ comfort but also to functional aspects. Source Graphic
by the Author

should be composed by modules that can be oriented towards winds direction, for
fog harvesting, and towards sun radius for shading (Fig. 65.5).
Today, there are many examples of architectural projects that have worked with
adaptive facade systems regarding daylight conditions by implementation of smart
systems (Al-Obaidi et al. 2017; Pirouz et al. 2020). Depending on the amount and
use of water, the size and placement of the storage must be planned; it can be on
the basement or on the roof. In case the amount of water collected is only sufficient
for irrigation purposes such as gardening, it can be an autonomous system. Thus,
when the amount collected is sufficient for domestic use, it can be connected to
the plumbing distribution for utilizing on WC flushes and washing machines after
filtration and disinfection processes (Fig. 65.6).
As regarding the maintenance, weakest point of the LFC is the mesh, in fact it
often gets broken because of the high velocity of the wind, generally more than
17 m/s (Holmes et al. 2015). Smaller size for the mesh can reduce the risk of damage
as stated by Holmes (Holmes et al. 2015). In the urban environment, the wind speed
is usually lower, and the proposed façade is composed of reduced fog collecting
modules. Therefore, the maintenance of the proposed façade only regards the gutter
cleaning; the lifespan of the fog collector depends on the one of the selected mesh.
Since a new application field has been proposed, the potentiality of a fog harvesting
façade should be explored with some test campaign both in the field, in a fog oasis,
and in the lab, in order to understand the behaviour of a mesh placed in front a solid
in varying wind velocities and façade dimensions. In order to develop this kind of
732 M. G. Di Bitonto et al.

Fig. 65.5 Façade concept—example of fog harvesting project development in building sector.
Source Graphic by the Author

Fig. 65.6 Plumbing system of fog water for domestic use. Source Graphic by the Author
65 Fog Water Harvesting Through Smart Façade for a Climate Resilient … 733

façade a parametric design is required to shape it, considering all the variables, so the
specific characteristics of the location, the building and the water collection purpose.

65.5 Conclusions

Considered the actual circumstances of traditional resources crisis, due to inade-

quate management, and the sustainability goals state for many sectors, including
construction, a novel architectonical device is essential to enhance the building
performance. The smart textile façade proposed can make the building water self-
sufficient lowering the ecological footprint and energy demand. The design depends
on many factors that refers to the local climatic conditions, to the building features on
which it can be attached and on the water demand and use. In order develop the design
some parametric tools are needed together with an experimental campaign. In fact,
the efficiency of fog collection has been proven in many areas worldwide; however,
the innovative solution must be verified and adjusted on the requirement. Extending
the system to a bigger scale, the smart textile can cover billboards, construction sites
or can be used as a fence in metropolitan cities, collecting water for public use.
Depending on the application site, even the fog water collected may not be sufficient
for the complete domestic use along the year, it can be stored and used as a support
supply for gardening.

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