Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation

16Principles and Applications of Atmospheric Water Harvesting

Mousa Maleki¹, Saeid Eslamian², and Boutaghane Hamouda³

¹Department of Civil Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch, Isfahan, Iran

²Department of Water Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

³Department of Hydraulics, Universite Badji Mokhtar, Annaba, Algeria

16.1 Introduction

Water scarcity is the first and most challenging crisis worldwide. With the growing world population, it is imperative to find alternative water resources to meet water demand. Atmospheric water, also known as air humidity, is one of the most accessible resources and therefore could be used as a sustainable resource for water harvesting.

16.1.1 Unconventional Water Resources

Unconventional water resources are a by-product of specific processes or can result from specialized technology to collect (access) water. These resources often need proper pre-use treatment, and when used for irrigation, they require appropriate on-farm management (Qadir et al. 2018). The key examples of unconventional water resources include groundwater confined in deep geological formations; atmospheric moisture harvested through cloud seeding and fog collection; physical transportation of water through icebergs; micro-scale capture of rainwater where it otherwise evaporates; desalinated water; and residual water from urban areas and agriculture (Figure 16.1).

Figure 16.1 Examples of unconventional water resources (Qadir et al. ...