Passive water harvesting by desert plants and animals: lessons from nature

Author(s):  
Dev Gurera ◽  
Bharat Bhushan

Fresh water sustains human life and is vital for human health. For some of the poorest countries, 1 in 10 people do not have access to safe and easily accessible water sources. Water consumption by man continues to grow with an increasing population. The current supply of fresh water needs to be supplemented to meet future needs. Living nature provides many lessons for water harvesting. It has evolved species which can survive in the most arid regions of the world by passively collecting water from fog and condensation of water vapour in the night. Before the collected water evaporates, species have mechanisms to transport water for storage or consumption. These species possess unique chemistry and structures on or within the body for collection and transport of water. Among the high diversity of species surviving in deserts, only a handful of species have been studied. Based on lessons from nature, bioinspired water harvesters can be designed. In this paper, an overview of various desert plants and animals is given and known water harvesting mechanisms of some are presented. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bioinspired materials and surfaces for green science and technology (part 3)’.

Author(s):  
Bharat Bhushan

Fresh water sustains human life and is vital for human health. It is estimated that about 800 million people worldwide lack basic access to drinking water. About 2.2 billion people (nearly one-third of the global population) do not have access to a safe water supply, free of contamination. Also, over 2 billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress. Current supply of fresh water needs to be supplemented to meet future needs. Living nature has evolved species which can survive in the most arid regions of the world by water collection from fog and condensation in the night. Before the collected water evaporates, species have mechanisms to transport water for storage or consumption. These species possess unique chemistry and structures on or within the body for collection and transport of water. In this paper, an overview of arid desert conditions, water sources and plants and animals, lessons from nature for water harvesting, and water harvesting data from fog and condensation are presented. Consumer, emergency and defence applications are discussed and various designs of water harvesting towers and projections for water collection are presented. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bioinspired materials and surfaces for green science and technology (part 3)’


Author(s):  
Bharat Bhushan

Fresh water sustains human life and is vital for human health. Water scarcity affects more than 40% of the global population and is projected to rise. For some of the poorest countries, 1 in 10 people do not have access to safe and easily accessible water sources. Water consumption by man continues to grow with increasing population. Furthermore, population growth and unsafe industrial practices, as well as climate change, have put strain on ‘clean' water supply in many parts of the world, including the Americas. Current supply of fresh water needs to be supplemented to meet future needs. Living nature provides many lessons for water source. It has evolved species, which can survive in the most arid regions of the world by water collection from fog and condensation in the night. Before the collected water evaporates, species have mechanisms to transport water for storage or consumption. These species possess unique chemistry and structures on or within the body for collection and transport of water. In this paper, an overview of arid desert conditions and water collection from fog, and lessons from living nature for water collection are provided. Data on various bioinspired surfaces for water collection are also presented. Some bioinspired water purification approaches are presented. Next, consumer to military and emergency applications are discussed and water collection projections are presented. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bioinspired materials and surfaces for green science and technology (part 2)’.


Author(s):  
Martha M. F. Kelly

In a now classic 1994 article Victor Zhivov counters the idea that the eighteenth-century quest to create a modern Russian literature represented a wholesale rejection of Russia’s previous literary tradition. He shows instead how poets appropriated elements of Orthodox liturgical tradition in a bid to adapt the classical notion of ‘furor poeticus’, marking it by the eruption of Church Slavonic norms into modern poetics. This chapter demonstrates how, as Zhivov contends, elements of Orthodox liturgical culture have continued to shape the modern Russian poetic tradition from the eighteenth century into the present. In particular, Russian poets have long presented poetry as uniquely able to transform the world by drawing on Orthodox imagery of theosis or divinization—the transfiguration of human life and thus the world, by the divine light and being. The liturgically inflected religious concerns of Russian poetry that sections address include prophecy, human co-creation with God, the problem of the body, and the role of silence.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3586
Author(s):  
Marina Solovyeva ◽  
Irina Krivosheeva ◽  
Larisa Gordeeva ◽  
Yuri Aristov

Nowadays, the rapidly growing population, climate change, and environment pollution put heavy pressure on fresh water resources. The atmosphere is the immense worldwide and available water source. The Adsorptive Water Harvesting from the Atmosphere (AWHA) method is considered a promising alternative to desalination technologies for remote arid regions. The development of novel adsorbents with advanced water-adsorption properties is a prerequisite for practical realization of this method. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a novel class of porous crystalline solids that bring a great potential for AWHA due to their extremely high specific surface area, porosity, and tailored adsorption properties. This work addresses MIL-160 as a water adsorbent for AWHA. The water-adsorption equilibrium of MIL-160 was studied by volumetric method, the isosteric heat of adsorption was calculated, and finally, the potential of MIL-160 for AWHA was evaluated for climatic conditions of the deserts of Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, the Sahara, Atacama, and Mojave as reference arid regions. MIL-160 was shown to ensure a maximum specific water productivity of 0.31–0.33 gH2O/gads per cycle. High fractions of water extracted (0.90–0.98) and collected (0.48–0.97) could be achieved at a regeneration temperature of 80 °C with natural cooling of the condenser by ambient air. The specific energy consumption for water production varied from 3.5 to 6.8 kJ/g, which is acceptable if solar heat is used to drive the desorption. The AWHA method employing MIL-160 is a promising way to achieve a fresh water supply in remote arid areas.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-238
Author(s):  
Rini Nafsiati Astuti

The living process is mediated by water to start a long evolutionary line that connected animal, plant, as well the human being. The beginning of life that involved water reflected in all of the life process, such as animal, plant, and human being as well. Single-cell organism is the simplest living thing is surrounded and filled with water. In order to survive, plant has to take water from the ground. While human being's body contains water about 54 % of weight contains liquid. Without water, living thing will not survive. The molecule of water bonds together in a special way that is known as hydrogen bonding. If there is no hydrogen bonding between water molecules so at 1 atm pressure water will be boiling at 100° C. This condition can cause disaster to the life on earth, such as blood will be boiling in the body, plants will be wilted and died, and the world will be turn to dry desert. Human no longer can't make their drinks. Water is very important for human life as it reflected in the verse that suggest human being to note the water they drink stated in Qur' an.


2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
CB Herman Edyanto

One of the most important of human life is water. Water may provide easily in certain areas , however, some parts in the world are still being suffered from the lack of fresh water. In eastern part of Indonesia for example people found the source of water several kilometers from their home and meet their basic need for their life. This research was executed in Flores Island to identify and explore the underground water which might be trapped under the town of Ende.


Author(s):  
Burak Şen ◽  
Ali Kaan Yetik

Efficient use of water, one of the most critical life elements in the world, is becoming more and more important day by day. With the continuous increase in population and with climate change problems occur in terms of both consumption rate and usage patterns of water resources. It is becoming increasingly important to apply and research methods that can solve these problems all over the world. One of these solutions is the “Water Harvesting” method, which goes back many years. Water harvesting can be defined as the accumulation of runoff generated by precipitation to provide water for human, animal or crop use. While it is possible to see the use of the technique with roof and farm systems in micro-catchment dimension; wadi-bed and off-wadi (diversion) systems are used in macro-catchment dimension. In agricultural production, which uses a significant part of water resources, most of the rainwater falling into arid and semi-arid regions where production continues, goes away before could using efficiently by evaporation or flow. For this reason, the use of water resources becomes mandatory by using traditional irrigation methods in agricultural lands. With the water harvesting technique, after storing rain water, it can be held to be applied to crops. Hence the method since there will be no losses due to evaporation or flow, it will increase the total amount of irrigation water and reduce the pressure on water resources. Except for the protection of water resources, its role in preventing soil erosion is also seen as one of the main benefits of the method. In general, when the appropriate method is selected according to the appropriate geography, water harvesting has low inputs and is not difficult to apply. With a few exceptions, it does not require the use of pumps or energy input to deliver or deliver harvested water. In this study, information is given about the main elements, different usage areas and techniques of water harvesting.


Author(s):  
Asif Raza

Plastic production is escalating tremendously throughout the globe and the reason behind this is its durability and multipurpose utility. But there is a severe scarcity of its management. Tonnes of plastics are dumped into water bodies across the world. These plastics breakdown because of different reasons and results in the plastic debris of size <5mm termed as microplastics (MPs) which are hazardous to aquatic life. They are a potential source of toxins as they offer a large surface area to various chemicals present in the water body when these MPs are ingested by fishes it causes serious health issues leading to mortality of the fishes. Therefore, we comprehensively reviewed the sources of MPs in freshwater systems and its various types and how they get accumulated inside the body of fishes. We found that fishes ingest these particles by mistaken for food or accumulated these particles by consuming from lower trophic organisms. Some of the commonly studied MPs are PE, PS, and PVC, examined from the body of fishes. MPs can cause various ecotoxicological effects on fishes like behavioral change, cytotoxicity, neurotoxicity effects, and liver stress etc. Our review study finds that there is a paucity of information on the accumulation of MPs by freshwater fishes and there are very few studies on its effects also there is a debate whether this accumulation is subjected to the bio-magnification process which ultimately affects human life.


Author(s):  
Gr.G. Khubulava

Relevance. Movement surrounds and accompanies us everywhere: planets move, time, river waters, the life of cities is accompanied by traffic along highways. Our own life is also inseparable from the phenomenon of movement, both at the micro and macro levels: whether it be the movement and division of atoms of matter and cells of the body, the movement and interaction of our bodies in space, or the movement of a person towards a specific goal, conditioned by intention and expressed in actions, which in themselves are also a movement of the will. Purpose: to describe and evaluate the nature of the phenomenon of movement both in the history of philosophy (from Zeno to Descartes and Bergson) and in the history of medicine (from Aristotle and Celsus to modern mechanisms that give a person a chance to return the possibility of movement as an aspect of full life). Methods: the research method is not only the analysis of the development of the phenomenon of movement in the history of philosophy and science, but also the analysis of the influence of modern technologies on the very understanding of the nature of movement not as a physiological, but as an ontological phenomenon. Results. The ancient idea of movement as a deception of the senses, describing the closed on itself the existence of an objectively motionless space or being the source and cause of eternally arising and disintegrating existence, was an attempt by thinkers to “catch the mind on being”, not just creating a picture of a single cosmos, but also comprehending him as part of the human world. The bodily movement and structure of a person was understood as part of the visible and speculative structure of being. The thought of the Middle Ages, which understood movement as the path of the world and man to God, perceived the phenomenon of movement as an expression of free will and, at the same time, the desire of the world to its completion, which is at the same time the moment of its transformation. The Renaissance epoch, which proclaimed man as an end in itself for existence, closely links the physical movement of man with the movement of the cosmos, and considers the visible nature to be the source of knowledge of the Divine Will. The New Time, which theoretically separated the mechanics of the bodily and the impulses of the soul and mind and declared man a “biological machine”, in fact does not break the relationship between the movement of the soul and the body, but, demonstrating the difference in the nature of these movements, anticipated the discovery of psychosomatics. Finally, modern times not only created a classification of “body techniques” inherent in various stages of human life and groups of people, describing the socio-cultural aspect of corporeality, but also perceived movement as an act of our existence and involvement in the existence of the world. Conclusion. Movement cannot be understood as a purely physiological act. In the process of growth, becoming, having barely learned to walk, we are faced with the need to perform actions, to “behave”, to be like a personal I and as a part of the moving world that collided with us. A world in which every step is an event and deed capable of defining “the landscape of our personal and universal being”.


Author(s):  
Debra Ugboma ◽  
Michelle Cowen

This chapter addresses the fundamental nursing role of managing hydration. Water is a basic nutrient and is essential to sustaining human life. In the developed world, we often take for granted the basic commodity of clean and plentiful water, but in other parts of the world water can have a profound effect on human health, in both the reduction and the transmission of disease (World Health Organization, 2011). For health, body water and electrolytes must be maintained within a limited range of tolerances. For nurses working in acute or primary care settings anywhere in the world, it is important to have a clear understanding of fluid and electrolyte homeostasis to assess haemodynamic status, to anticipate and recognize deterioration in status, and to implement appropriate corrective interventions. Developing knowledge and associated skills around this topic will be facilitated by reflecting upon your clinical experiences as a student or as a qualified nurse, and your ability to link theory and practice. Your basic foundation of knowledge should include an understanding of how fluid is gained and lost from the body, the distribution of water between different compartments within the body, the processes by which fluid and electrolytes move between the intracellular and extracellular environments (Pocock and Richards, 2009; Cowen and Ugboma, 2011), and knowledge of the different types of intravenous replacement fluid (Endacott et al., 2009: 249–73). Equally important is an insight into the use of criteria such as clinical/ outcome indicators and benchmarking, what to use on what occasions, and how to use such tools to your best advantage. Armed with this knowledge, you will be well equipped to assess each patient’s needs and to make clinical decisions about the most appropriate evidence-based nursing interventions to be used. The state of water balance within the body is principally maintained by the osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus. These are best described as ‘sensors’ that detect the osmolarity (concentration) of the blood to stimulate or suppress the thirst mechanism, as well as regulate the amount of antidiuretic hormone (ADH) released by the posterior pituitary gland. When a person is becoming dehydrated, the thirst centre will be stimulated and usually he or she will seek fluid to rehydrate him or herself.


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