Words by Smiley Team
Today, 22nd March is World Water Day. This year, the public is encouraged to consider the value of clean water. Obviously, drinking water is essential to human life, with a daily requirement of between six to eight glasses of fluid a day, depending on where you live and your sex. But sadly, one in three people globally still don’t have access to this basic necessity. That’s why innovations to provide cheap and practical solutions to water scarcity are such positive news. Here are our top picks of ideas for creating drinkable water.
In Colombia, high-tech glass panels help residents of Bahia Hondita become water secure, supplying 22,000 litres of fresh water each month. Powered by sunlight, the panels draw water vapour out of the atmosphere, concentrate it, and infuse it with minerals. In less than an hour, a single panel can fill up a glass of water. This sustainable and scalable solution resolves water scarcity issues faced by residents of the remote bay.
On the slopes of Mount Boutmezguida in Morocco, a line of mesh nets capture moisture from fog as condensation that drips into collection trays. The devices capture up to 6,300 litres of water a day, an impressive capacity which won the charity responsible, Dar Si Hmad, the UN’s 2016 Momentum for Change Award.
Created by young New Zealand designer Henry Glogau, water purifying skylights use solar rays to make seawater drinkable. The devices also maximise leftover brine to generate energy for lighting shanty houses on sun-baked coastlines. This is an apt solution for poorer citizens of Chile, where about 110,000 families live in shantytowns. In these informal settlements, it’s difficult to access purified drinking water and homes are usually very poorly lit.
Tackling poor sanitation and water scarcity at once, Sanitation and Health Rights India set up community toilets in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand. This is a cost-effective solution and a source of useful methane, which helps power a water filtration unit, creating pure, drinkable water that can be stored and sold.
The thinnest and lightest compound scientists have yet discovered, graphene is a tightly-packed layer of carbon atoms. Because the space between atoms is so small, it is believed to act as an effective water filter, removing contaminants such as bacteria and viruses from water. Scientists are still working on developing a desalination membrane from this material, which they understand to have great potential.
