Waterspots : Watering Holes for the 21st century by Shiftworks

Thanks to all the judges who evaluated the Waterspots project. We're grateful for your time and insight. Our responses and revisions are below:

1. More detail is needed on whether water could be utilized if not connected to the municipal water network.

All Waterspots include onsite water filers. Our models use ceramic filters coupled with chlorine tablets. Treated water is transferred to taps onsite at Waterspots models through foot pumps. Health codes in each deployment site will be vastly different but it's our hope that by designing filtration systems to abide by more stringent health codes in developed countries, we can achieve successful systems for deployment in developing countries as well. Even when not connected to municipal water systems, Waterspots are designed to provide fresh potable water onsite via embedded filtration systems & taps powered by foot pumps (think of them as public watering fountains that catch water onsite).

This text can be found in the project entry in the What actions do you propose? Refine the prototype section.

2. In the current circumstances, government sector investment especially in the targeted developing countries could be challenging to obtain. The Judges would like to proposal authors to address this issue more fully.

Waterspots are designed for deployment through government sponsored partnerships. Financial & administrative support from municipal, regional & federal governing institutions is key to implementing Waterspots services.

In certain circumstances, however, government sector investment may be challenging to obtain. In these contexts, public-private partnerships will be pursued. We will also be exploring micro-finance options for installation in more developing countries and smaller communities. We are also pursuing collaborations with water-focused international charities such as Charity.water, Water.org and WaterisLife to explore opportunities for non-profit investment and distribution platforms.

This text can be found in the project entry in the Who will take these actions? section.

3. It does seem like efficiency improvements are needed in the technology are important. 10 l of water per day doesn't seem like much.

While 10 liters per day seems small, that is the level at which Waterspots water prices become competitive with processed bottled water market prices. Current global market prices for bottled water are an average of $0.32/L. (Boesler, 2013) With Waterspots models priced at $1000 per unit (this does not include the interactive educational components and ongoing maintenance costs), Waterspots water is competitive price-wise once each model catches an average of 8.57L/per day.

We just installed our first prototype at the Berkeley, CA marina in October 2017. September, October and the early weeks of November are traditionally the driest months of the year in the San Francisco Bay Area, yet the prototype successfully caught water in these low-humidity conditions. The prototype used Rachel mesh, a plastic filament fog catchment mesh fabricated in Chile. Typical water production rates from this material range from 7.5 to over 100 L/m2/day (2008, FogQuest). Typical catchment rates for the prototype were 2oz/day in conditions that were below 20% humidity. In conditions of 90% humidity (this occurred on October 17th), we caught 2L/m2 of fog mesh area per day, for a total of 5 liters/day for the prototype. These levels, caught during the driest months of the year, present exciting possibilities for significant water catchment levels during wetter seasons.

We are now working on incorporating rainwater catchment and dew harvesting techniques, both active (with solar panels) and passive (with textured polymer surfaces and coated polyethylene materials). With these systems incorporated, we’re confident that Waterspot catchment levels will easily reach and surpass a daily average of 10L/day. Water catchment rates for super hydrophobic/hydrophilic material surfaces with which we are working can reach 1.7mg of water caught per mm2 surface area, which could translate to thousands of liters of water harvested on a single Waterspot unit per day. (Mondal et al, 2015)

This text can be found in the project entry in the What actions do you propose? Refine the prototype section.

4. More information is needed regarding which types of climates are appropriate and feasible

Climates where Waterspots collections systems are most effective are areas with low rainfall and high atmospheric humidity. These conditions exist in areas across the globe, including sites such as Lima, Peru, where atmospheric humidity is almost 98%; Santa Barbara, where average humidity can get into the 80s and Los Angeles districts like Santa Monica where average humidity is 74%; Arica, Chile and Iquique, Chile where average humidity ranges from 70% to 80% throughout the year; Cape Town, South Africa; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where humidity reaches significant levels between July and September.

This text can be found in the project entry in the Where will these actions be taken? section.