Water from the desert

Title

Language

English

Source

Panorama XIV (5) May 1962

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

Water From the Desert A Japanese has invented a simple device by which water can be obtained even from the desert. According to Mr. Kobaya shi, director of the Japan Elec trical Research Institute in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, his invention suc ceeded in obtaining water from the desert area near Mt. Mihara on the island of Oshima southeast of Tokyo. Dur ing his experiments carried out on the “Japanese Desert” on Oshima, he was able to col lect one liter of water from one square meter of sand sur face during a 24-hour period. On his way to the interna tional conference on the utili zation of new energy sources held in Rome last August un der the sponsorship by the United Nations, Mr. Kobaya shi carried out a similar ex periment at Quetta, an arid area in Pakistan, and was suc cessful in obtaining almost the same results as the tests conducted on Oshima. Since the experiments have been conducted only in two countries so far, the inventor feels that he must carry out more tests in the deserts throughout the world in order to obtain convincing proof of the success of his invention. lhe invention is quite sim ple; the device consists of on ly a plate of glass within a square frame lined with adia batic material. The glass is placed so that the solar rays hit the glass at right angle. Moisture forms on the inside surface of the glass plate and finally becomes drops of wa ter which is then collected. Underground water is pre sent in any area no matter how dry the surface of ground. This underground water gra dually seeps up to the sur face through the capillary action, but it evaporates into the air almost instantly in arid and hot districts. How ever, when this device, is used, the water, in the form of vapor which rises up to the surface from deep below the ground, becomes satura ted in the box and forms moisture on the inside surface of the glass plate. The water obtained from this moisture is natural distilled water which is entirely free from impurities. Water can be obtained by the device even at night when the sun is down. This Is be90 Panorama Israeli farmers £eatn Old Cesson Farming methods which proved enective in the Mid dle East 2,000 years ago may be used by modem farmers in the Negev desert, in Israel. Agricultural research workers there are reconstructing an cient desert farms which, from archeological evidence, flourished during the period 200 B.C. to 600 A.D., first un der the Nabateans, then the Romans and finally the By zantines. The area consists of rugged rocky hillsides, cut by narrow wadis or valleys leading to broad flood plains. The soils on the slopes are very shal low and gravelly, while those at the bottom of the wadis consists of a layer of loamy earth often several metres thick. The ancient desert farmers invented- elaborate methods for collecting and spreading run-off water from cause .subterranean heat still exists at night due to the sur face of the ground having been heated by the sun dur ing the day time. The volume of water ob tainable from low areas ’ in a desert is the same as that from higher locations such as sand dunes. This is because the height of the sand dunes is significant compared with the hills to irrigate the soil in the wadis and flood plains. The Israeli researchers have restored two of the ancient farms with their terraces, walls, spillways and channels. They have made detailed stu dies of rainfall patterns and have started experiments with various crops to test the effi ciency of these ancient farm ing methods. At one farm, fruit trees and vines were planted in 1958 and, in spite of the fact that two years of drought follow ed, the trees have grown ve ry well, irrigated by the run off waters. At the other farm, barley was planted and pro duced a good crop although annual rainfall was only 40 millimeters. Further north in the Negev desert, barley crops which had 80 mm. of rain failed completely. the depth where the under ground water is located. This device, which was re ported in a conference con cerning the utilization of so lar energy held recently in Tokyo, caused quite a sensa tion. It was also reported that it aroused considerable interest among the partici pants at the Rome conference last August. May 1962 91

pages

90-91

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