Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation

17Dew Harvesting on High Emissive Natural and Artificial Passive Surfaces

Jose Francisco Maestre-Valero¹, Bernardo Martin-Gorriz¹, Victoriano Martínez-Alvarez¹, and Saeid Eslamian²

¹Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Agronómica, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, 30203 Cartagena, Spain

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

17.1 Introduction

Dew is the result of water condensing from the atmospheric humidity on a surface sufficiently radiatively cooled by its own emission of radiation (Beysens et al. 2007). Under natural conditions, this potential water source can be widely used by plants and animals in dry environments and can supply enough moisture to microorganisms for survival (Steinberger et al. 1989; Kidron et al. 2002). This is why its environmental, agricultural, economic, and social role has long attracted researchers and engineers. In fact, collected dew may also serve as a supplementary source of water, which may even be accepted for human consumption, as a result of its chemical qualities (Muselli et al. 2006a; Lekouch et al. 2011; Sharan et al. 2017; Beysens et al. 2017). This is especially significant in regions where the water accessibility and supply becomes difficult (Muselli et al. 2006a; Lekouch et al. 2011; Beysens 2016), such as semi-arid and arid geographical settings and small islands in developing countries (Beysens et al. 2007; Sharan 2007; Malekian Jabali et al. 2017).

There have been a wide range of ...