Minutes time be back with a. Off to techno which now looks at the science of ability. Without his era i for now. Water everywhere with less and less to drink. In space the earth is a big blue planet covered seventy percent in water the closer look for villas the only two and a half percent that is fresh water with only one percent being easily accessible to keep our six point eight billion inhabitants alive and well the United Nations report suggests that water consumption has grown twice as fast as population growth by twenty twenty five its estimated that two thirds of the population will live in water stressed regions of the world water scarcity is a serious problem globally its been said that will be wars fought over water this is techno a show about innovations that can change lives were going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity and were doing it in the unique way this is a show about science by scientists. When it comes to water scarcity part of the problem is that our modern world has built with little concern that water is a finite resource our society. Our economy our whole system of of living was based upon a paradigm of plentiful water and i dont think it was considered a what if we need to use less especially in agriculture the pressure to feed the world uses most of the fresh water supply sixty nine percent goes to farming with nineteen percent going to industry and only twelve percent of households in municipal use. I think we are unintentionally wasteful with water but we use more than we probably need to in an ideal situation but a part of is really learning how to use less water so with a global freshwater crisis upon us scientists like to don your financials. A working to create Innovative Solutions to help save fresh water supply. We begin in californias Central Coast a scientists looking sort of joining down capturing water from a weather phenomenon thats been around for. Fog is a crucial part of the ecosystem and its a very interesting intriguing part of a very complex system that we call weather and its one that is much less understood on a Research Fellow in Monterey California and whats really interesting is the contrast between old and new technology on one side of me is a field of study the panels which is having a huge impact on the way energy is consumed in the micro area and then behind me is the age old technique of collecting water from fog which could provide a solution to the problem of global water scarcity. This seems to be a very Novel Technology but its actually been around for a while hasnt. Collection actually has been around for a long time longer than in some cases recorded history so how long have humans trying to harvest as you can see evidence. Even ten thousand years ago in areas where some of the populations there actually established their bases and we know it from archaeological evidence where middens were found happen to be in locations that were heavily fogged areas the idea maybe from the past but the Science Behind it. All right and ill take the tools. Theres the afternoon breeze. Were going to be i think on more on this. Carry out the parts that when assembled become a research. Ready to collect data. To deploy so why have you chosen three meters and between. Them because i want to have a significant enough separation that one of these fall collectors want to check with the other one is picking up were going to get them down yes now were going to anchor them down. We want them to treat be pretty steady. This is really engineering at its best im standing here was nestled pipes in my hands and mash nets above my head which really is going to collect water from fog and its quite right now is this typical. Fog its not going to catch any fog in this in this weather right now because the fogs up a couple hundred metres the fog literally has to be right where were standing and that typically is going to happen during the night and in the Early Morning hours before the sun comes and burns the fog away sorry another data point guys up exactly whats being studied here is how to create the most efficient folk catching device at the heart of it innovative smash designs some made of plastic to capture the maximum amount of water possible but work experimented with our different amounts of mesh in the standard is to use two layers so were actually collecting data on one two and three layers to see which one really does work better innovations in mesh design comes from what scientists school. Building on what Mother Nature has already created in this case taking keys from leaves the country can we emulate the surface of a leaf keep in mind a leaf has a lot of different surfaces different angles theres a lot of complexity in the surface that the wind can blow through and the little droplets of fall can collect on so one example. Is here. This is a type of mesh that is is actually made in a its called a shell mesh and it its a double layer of it is the standard type of mesh used for fog water collection and you can see theres actually different surfaces involved. In this nash at different angles and in a sense this emulate what a tree would do the structure of this match must be crucial thats one of the things that is a current area of research what is it about the match that makes it an ideal fall collector theres a lot of interest in what type of materials make good is that the physical characteristics of the mesh is that perhaps the chemical characteristics of the mesh were still exploring what are all of the Details Associated with optimal fall collection under different environmental conditions it seems like quite. How much water can you collect typically you know in a standard day around here we might get during the fog event a leader fraction of a leader but there are some areas where we have some elevation where we get fog in some cases there i can get several gallons in a day or if you want to scale this up and have giants. You know that would change everything when yeah there are places in the world where theyre doing that including a morocco for instance eritrea. Want to model haiti so theres a number of countries around the world that have that also have serious water needs where they are scaling these up so they have. Actors like this that are dozens of square kilometers in size that collect correspondingly that much more water because they have the area so how many nets it developed around the world at this time quest a Nonprofit Organization involved in Sustainable Water projects estimates that currently two hundred folks that is ten countries producing forty thousand liters of water a day an example of this is found in south america. There isnt a tree in sight in the hotshot to comment does it. Stretching almost a thousand kilometers its known as the driest place on. The kiss is located in the Pacific Ocean the region is blanketed. And is. The. Villages have turned to a system of simple math to capture water from fog. Its a much simpler version of the folks. Studying and innovating in california but for the people of this. Gift of life. The next capture about ten thousand liters of water a day from folks. On the water is used to bring new life to the area. But. For the people of chile. As a gift from nature they dont concern themselves with the chemical makeup of their nets have captured. You. Then you should be. Back in the university of california santa cruz to peta vice penzias is conducting research on the safety of using collected folklore. And human consumption as a chemist i came into the fog from the point of view of wanting to know what are the chemical compounds that are present in and by its very nature of being composed of very small water droplets are suspended in the air its very oppression and not absorbing particles and gases and hurdles and gases. Often include toxic noxious compounds that have been released by human activities or in some cases Natural Sources and unlike rain jobs that falls to the ground very quickly. This can be suspended in the after hours or even days absorbing a variety of Police Thousands and compounds places like eastern China Shanghai japan and. Various cities in europe they have heavy smoke lots of aerosol particles heavy metal toxins such as mercury in the air and these can be absorbed and concentrated into the fog droplets the droplets then can strike vegetation or maybe the surface of the building and deposit those pollutants onto the surface where they would then be exposed to them youll studies have led g. T. Methylmercury in water that sounds incredibly boring that it even exists methylmercury could be formed and deeper waters of the ocean and then through coastal upwelling which is a process that brings a deeper water to the surface along the coasts especially along california that methylated mercury could come to the surface of the ocean and its a volatile is a gas so that it could escape the ocean water and possibly be taken up by a fog bank and sure enough we found that they contained roughly ten times higher methylmercury than we typically find in rain now should we be worried about it still the levels are very low. It would not be harmful for humans to inhale the fog water and absorb that methylmercury because the Health Threshold is still probably one hundred times greater than what we see in the bar but what about the most pristine parts of the wells collecting folk water like weve seen in chile as as far. We know there fog water is fit to drink g g g if i was connected in china in chile i probably would say have some songs of folk with a headache yes these were collected on some very foggy nights here at u. C. Santa cruz i wanted to show you simple tests that we could do and that is ph and so what i have here is just a small amount of the fog water trying toggle i just came out of the air and will compare that to some tap water and this is the kind of really the most basic test that youd want to do if you were to determine if the water was safe for drinking or for your geisha and. And so for the tap water we would hope that the tap water is close to neutral p. Eight so thats a good test that one first will stick this little ph strip in there and we compare it against our scale and it looks like its there we go its about six and maybe slightly more than six so a neutral ph is seven tap water is about six so thats thats good now will test the fog water and if we were collecting this fogs in a very polluted location near maybe some coal fired power plants that the sulfur released from those and missions would create sulfuric acid and this would be very acidic but fortunately here in santa cruz we dont have any such industries and so now measure the ph lets compare the two weve got the tap water here on the right and the fog water on the left and i would conclude at least from a city point of view that the fog water is would be safe to drink or to use for irrigation irrigation and agriculture the not just short of fresh water on the plant we saw how full can help in a small scale in regions like chile but how could it impact the najah agricultural picture around the wound in agriculture for instance theres people who are currently looking at can we water. Intelligently other words can we shoes to water when the crops reach a certain level of dryness rather than just watering on some sort of a schedule. Fog can augment water availability during the otherwise dry time of year and offset water stress on the stroll before in california Central Coast to sarah but just this is scientific come to find the balance between folk and it would essentially knowing more about fall could actually change the way we. Yes it changes the physical environment important words that reduce whats called a back or transpiration about a transpiration is the loss of water from the surface to the atmosphere from soil and plants on days like today evapotranspiration is really if the plants arent demanding as much water you dont need to irrigate as much this sounds like common sense collecting the data to formulate an eye watering strategy is being done fast time theres a big gap right now between the information that this research is general and farming practices this research is the first to address how coastal fog events impact about the transpiration raids and the crop function. Begins with a series of scientific instruments measuring pants at ground level these are some of the instruments we use to measure the exchange of carbon and water and energy between the atmosphere and the surface is there a particular reason why this instrument lies in this particular spot this is an ideal location actually to. Really understand coastal fog influence on ecosystem level carbon and water balance because as we can see its a pretty homogenously landscape vegetatively theres not a lot of noise a susi to do with the effects of different species or topography on these changes in concentration and we can really really understand the effect of cousteau fog on field scale carbon in Water Exchange what is this device here is my hand im no its so this is whats called the light person four hundred its a portable photosynthesis system and this instrument allows us to take the pulse of plants at the level of the leaf when we clamp this instrument onto a leaf which youre welcome to do we can measure how much leaf it is photosynthesizing and transpiring is how much carbon its taking up and how much waters. So why dont you clamp on it yeah it does this go ahead and clamp all the way and hold that theyre serving right now in new york. And whats called still model thats the degree to which. In. Mar here the number more. Than that means that there are more walker loss is the states and telling me i roll this is really the heart of the project we want to have mechanistic understanding of how these crops respond to their environment and so the data that ive been collecting using this instrument tells us that plants dont lose as much water on foggy days compared to sunny days so theres a significant reduction in water loss from plants on foggy days. I have to say that sounds very intuitive you know you would expect them not to need so much water when is so why is your with such sorrow impactful this is the first time that weve been quantifying in understanding what the effect is on fog in being able to compare and contrast the response of crops to different environmental conditions if this instrumentation could be used in a variety of different ecosystems and agricultural systems around the world wed have a much better understanding of how local climate affects water to more from farms and has much greater potential to confidently make informed decisions about how much water to apply in agriculture reducing irrigation amounts in both folk and of the farming regions is just another small step in addressing water scarcity from fog and deserts around the world to next piece of hotel in Los Angeles California the quest to address water scarcity through science and technology continues here with more on that part of the story is tech ace coast matters the hilton hotel in Universal City california is no stranger to doing laundry every room uses twenty five gallons of water a day to keep the sheets clean however thanks to some new technology all that has changed but need the bustle of visible massive hotel inventor Steve Jenkins the chief Technology Officer of zeros a london based company is making a dent in a world thirsting for more of one of its most fragile resources water at the moment what sounds like things are telling none of the drama just being sprayed with water yeah detergent so far this serious machine looks like any ordinary commercial washer but then comes the water saving innovation we dont have a lot so weve got to put this three step in to spread the good said. I think if we stop and then the beads are going to come in and do that well polymer beads around one point five million of them taking the place of water in the washer these beads act like tiny sponges pounding soaking up in carrying away dirt and stains from fabrics so once the beans about you drop dead the stock tumbling and then the hose on the drum wall on the beach watching go through the hole down by trying to become active and then hold back up. All the beach go in and some of the beads the poles from just to keep it topped up as we go wash cycle the last water used in the commercial washington of the sun seventy eighty percent so in an hour cycle same way using one hundred fifteen someone walk by liters of water and thats really low for a twenty five milligram wash no really want to you know typically youd be five hundred liters or even more on that machine settling down so were saving a lot of water on what im washing will cost you ten years to really sustain. A simple chemistry demonstration offers a close up look at how the polymer beads work then move from jean this is blue dye its a solution in water yeah its moderately warm its only just above Room Temperature but you can see that about six that die that we made went about the abuse rather than we make those changes that youre wearing them ok and this is the beads that were going to test on these beads basically slightly bigger you can see them out of the camera and theyre also the next generation of beads that were working on with b. S. F. These are going to replace those moving these are going to move and replace those beams ok so if i just. Fill this up with this Little Research im. Going to put this lid on here so we dont want to cope with it ok and then i need a happy volunteer he will shake hes going to shake for about two minutes ok so whats happening in there now is those feet have chemistry in this well thats the problem theres more chemistry in there which is actually. Starting to exalted die in the system on the beach will gradually tend to blow up on the war so what she thinks clearest and it will take about two minutes from now starting looks great if thats offensive so youre seeing some. Civility some haziness and thats just from the action of the shaking of the thing that will settle down for the color change is to be informed of basically being a washing machine you are being a washing machine what makes these what makes is the second version so the size of the shapes different from the density slightly different stuff to help us get more of the sounds of the washing up to. Get a bit more mechanical action into the water show that more mass to the feed fewer beats obviously because we dont want to pull the ball you keep the same volume of machines for us but weve got few bits ok so we started out with. This color. Deep. And this is what we have looked so. Well. So you can see color protection effect. And you can also see. The effect on the beads just suck sucked it all up correct could you use a mix of beads that are tuned for each individual color you can and you can put different chemistries in the different beads a complicated solution but its technically possible unlike water that is used in commercial and home washing machines and later discarded when the polymer beads have reached their full life cycle after hundreds of uses theyre not just dumped into local landfills amounts are taken those speeds away because we dont throw them away we we have to clean them up and we cant potentially reuse them in the system or in them beyond that we can recycle them in other applications but they just melt them down they can be melted down a process just like plastic that this family. Anyway i made this thing these machines are catching on in north america in the u. K. With hundreds of models up and running but the big news consumers at the moment are hotels this machine and hes saving over a few thousand a year wow thats a lot of space a low low low and he havent told us the benefit of recycled directly i mean maybe. The Technological Advancement the not only saves money but more importantly is having a quantifiable impact on conserving fresh water through innovation just one more small but important step in scientific efforts to help mitigate water scarcity around the world. Thats all for today join us for more science and innovation from around the wilds next time on technique. To. Show the ingredients that bring smiles but its also the number one culprit in a Global Health crisis cardiovascular disease thats our number one killer already oh say the hardest part is just to say we think about that but there is that all the same if we prove that sugar increases risk factors this is a problem techno i bestowed on all diseases. 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