Dew Water Harvesting Project - SPF0098
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Dew Water Harvesting Project
SPF0098
Prof. Jan Adamowski and Dr. Bahaa Khalil
Introduction
A key element of sustainable design is ‘eco-education’, which is the concept that incorporates
sustainability into the curriculum to allow improved understanding of system design and its
impact on the environment. The main objective of the “Dew Water Harvesting Project” is to
construct dew water condensers for educational purposes. The constructed fully functional dew-
water harvesting units on the McGill Macdonald and downtown campuses are excellent
‘showcase’ hands-on sustainable teaching tools for students and the public to learn about water
conservation and dew-water harvesting in particular.
The dew-water harvesting units provide a training site for current and future students studying
water resources and sustainable practices at McGill. To date, many students from BREE 510,
BREE 420, BREE 655 and others have explored the systems. This has drawn considerable
interest among students, and we have had large numbers students (over 10) who have already
worked on research projects related to the Dew system. Dew water harvesting systems are very
rare despite their significant potential; these unique units are excellent teaching tools that
complement our previous SPF rainwater harvesting system project that we already built through
a previous Sustainability Project Fund grant.
The dew-water harvesting units are also being used for research purposes. As mentioned above,
over 10 students have done research projects related to the dew systems. Some examples of
outputs to date: several BREE 497 research papers; a conference paper published in one of the
best known international conferences in the agricultural field (American Society of Agricultural
and Biological Engineering International Annual Meeting, June 2014, Montreal); another
conference paper that will be published in the Canadian Hydrotechnical Conference, April 2015;
one journal paper submitted to the Journal of Sustainable Water Resources Management; and a
second journal paper that is almost complete and which will be submitted soon. Each of the
above involved multiple students at McGill who were exposed for the first time to the whole
process of writing formal conference and journal papers, presenting at conferences, etc. In
addition, these students have spoken with their colleagues about the project with the result that
on our campus most students studying environmental issues have either seen or heard about the
dew system project (and the previous rainwater harvesting project).
Project Summary
In this project 16 unique dew water condensers were constructed and installed on the two McGill
campuses (12 units on the Macdonald Campus and 4 units on McGill’s main downtown
campus). The Macdonald 12 units were installed near the Macdonald workshop, while the 4
downtown units were installed on the roof of the Biology Stewart Building.
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Amounts of dew water collected by each of the 16 dew condensers were regularly measured on
daily basis during the summer of 2014. By the end of the summer season, the 16 dew units were
stored in the Macdonald workshop to be installed again during the 2015 summer season (starting
late April up to early September).
Lectures about nonconventional sources of water including fog and dew water collection were
introduced for the first time this year to the undergraduate students (over 175) as well as to the
IWRM program students (over 50) and Certification students (over 50). Students were given
tours of the facilities, and detailed Q&A periods helped them understand the systems. An
educational video about dew water collection was prepared based on this project, and will be
further modified based on the results of the measurements taken last summer and the years to
come. This video is unique since the topic of dew water systems is one that has barely been
explored in academia and in practice.
The project team has published two conference papers, submitted one journal paper and another
journal paper is under preparation. A conference paper titled “Towards an independent dew
water irrigation system for arid or insular areas” was published in the ASABE International
Annual Meeting, Montreal Canada, June 2014. This paper was presented at the conference and
generated significant interest. Another conference paper titled “Dew water collection as a
nonconventional source of water” was accepted for publication in the Canadian Hydrotechnical
Conference, April 2015. A journal paper titled “Dew water collection designs from radiative
passive collectors to recent inventions of active collectors: A review” has been submitted to the
Journal of Sustainable Water Resources Management, and another journal paper is under
preparation. Students were fully involved in all of the above.
Project Challenges
The initial plan was to buy already constructed condensers from the International Organization
of Dew Utilization (OPUR) - four standard 1 m2 condensers, and 1 large 30 m2 condenser.
However, the prices of small condensers was raised, and became more than the amount requested
in the budget. In addition, OPUR stopped the manufacture of large condensers. This was the first
challenge that the project faced. The decision was to follow other alternatives that were
previously planned by the project team: we bought only the condenser foils (plastic sheets), and
constructed the condenser frames ourselves. This turned out to be very interesting since we were
able to show how simple it is to build dew systems from scratch with limited resources. We feel
that this is important as an educational tool since students and the public realized that they could
build these systems themselves.
Another challenge was the selection of the site to install the dew condensers. The site behind the
Horticulture Research Center (HRC) was initially selected, so that the dew condensers could be
connected to the rain harvesting system that was already built (as part of a previous SPF project).
However, the area behind the HRC is always locked, and students that had to go early in the
morning (before sun rise) to take measurements of the dew system were required to pass by the
security office each time, take the key, take measurements, and return the key. In addition, very
limited space was available, which could only accommodate small condensers and not a large
one. That is why the place near the Bioresource Engineering Department workshop was selected
instead: the first reason was that it is near to the Macdonald Workshop in an open area and is
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never locked and the second reason is that the area near the workshop is more visible, as most of
the McGill students pass by this site, and not ‘hidden’ like the area behind the originally planned
site. In the end, the new site turned out to be better.
Based on these two challenges, the project team decided to buy only the condenser foil from
OPUR and other materials (frame material, insulation material, etc.) were purchased from local
stores. Construction took place in the Macdonald workshop – this in itself was a great
educational opportunity for the 10 students involved in the research. In addition, the project team
decided to construct more standard condensers and install some of them on the downtown
campus. Sixteen condensers were constructed, from which twelve were installed near the
Macdonald workshop as three units, each consisting of four standard condensers, at three
different levels (1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 m above soil surface), and four standard condensers were
installed on the roof of the Biology Stewart Building on the downtown campus. For the
downtown campus condensers, the plan is to install these four condensers in different places in
the future each summer season, so that they can be viewed by most of the students on the
downtown campus.
Two different designs were proposed for the standard condensers: metal frames for the
Macdonald campus units and wooden frames for the downtown campus units. Appendix A
shows photos for the construction of the dew condensers. A Postdoc, two MSc students, and one
undergraduate student were involved in the construction, and installation of the dew condensers
in both campuses with the help of Mr. Scott Makletow of the Department of Bioresource
Engineering. Six additional students were involved in the research itself (taking measurements,
data analysis, giving tours, etc.).
Impact Metrics
Indicator Qualitative and quantitative Target Actual Notes
Number of students in courses with BREE 510; Online Certification;
300 325
integrated SPF learning materials IWRM students; other students.
ASABE Annual International
Meeting, 2014;
Canadian Hydrotechnical
Conference, 2015;
Number of papers published 2 4 One paper submitted to the
Journal of Sustainable Water
Resources Management; one
additional paper to be submitted
soon.
Bioresource Engineering,
Number of McGill departments engaged 1 2
Biology Department
FAES,
Number of McGill faculties engaged 1 2
Faculty of Science
Kate Reilly; Ahmed Shabbir;
Jérome Boisvert-Chouinard;
Number of Student jobs created 2 8
Zineb Fachar; Marcela Rojas;
Geneviève Grenon; Kai Park;
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Caro Jang;
Ahmed Shabbir; Marcela Rojas,
Number of students receiving credit for
1 1 Genevieve Grenon; Kai Park;
research
Caro Jang
Number of days worked on SPF project 200 200
Talks with FAES students as part
Number of events 2 6
of IWRM program
Over
Number of event attendees 60
100
Two lectures were prepared,
main lecture about non-
Number of SPF learning materials used in conventional source of water and
1 3
course lectures another lecture about advances in
dew water collection technology
and one video.
Project Stakeholders
More than 300 students were involved in the non-conventional sources of water lectures given
through BREE 510, the Online IWRM program, BREE 420, and the MSc in IWRM program. A
lot of students were highly interested and asked to be involved in the project, from which eight
students were formally involved either in construction and installation, daily measurements,
and/or paper writing. Two additional students volunteered their time throughout the project.
In addition, the published conference papers and presentations gathered the attention of several
experts and institutions worldwide, for instance Prof. Adamowski received two requests for
cooperation from the National Water Research Center (NWRC) in Cairo, Egypt and from the
Rotary Club Bali Ubud Sunset (NGO) in Bali, Indonesia. In addition, over 50 requests for the
papers have already been received. Prof. Adamowski’s team helped the NWRC staff in the
construction of four standard dew condensers in Wadi El-Natroon, Egypt, following the design
proposed for the downtown campus. Our team is in progress to evaluate different opportunities
to help the Rotary Club Bali Ubud Sunset to evaluate dew water collection systems in Bali.
Budget Changes
Due to changes in the initial plan, and instead of buying already constructed condensers, a
decision was made to construct the condenser frames in the Macdonald workshop. The
construction of the condensers was cheaper than the estimated costs of purchase, but involved
more students and consequently our budget for student involvement increased. This led to a
request to transfer around CAD 6900 for additional payment to students who worked on the
project. In addition, one earlier request was accepted by the SPF to transfer CAD 530 to support
ASABE conference registration.
Future Activities and Recommendations
The natural extension of the dew water harvesting project is to build other condensers using
different technologies as examples of different dew condenser designs such as the earth water
condenser, active condensers, and Independent Dew Water Irrigation Systems (IDWIS) that were
proposed by Prof. Adamowski’s team during the ASABE International Annual Meeting. The
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IDWIS received a very positive response from experts worldwide (e.g. we have been asked to
build this system in Egypt and in Indonesia).
Prof. Jan Adamowski and his team already planned for the installation and measurements of the
dew condensers for next couple of summers. In addition, the initial plan is to build new
condensers every year (using different dew condensation technologies), and the team is working
now on finding different possibilities to fund the construction of other technologies for
educational purposes as well as to build a prototype of the IDWIS. These are the main
recommendations for the future expansion of the project.
In addition, one recommendation for the MOOS and SPF staff is to support conference
attendance. International conferences are excellent for information and technology
dissemination, and for getting others to become aware of the SPF projects. This will also
significantly increase the impact of the SPF projects themselves since people from outside
Montreal become aware of the research and then use this information in their own projects.
Overall, we felt that the dew system project was very successful and had significant impacts!
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Appendix A: Photos of the construction of the Dew Water Condensers – Downtown campus and
Macdonald Campus of McGill University
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