CSUMB Fog Collection
Hundreds of students at California State University, Monterey Bay have been involved in fog collection research since 2005. Some were engaged as a part of their final capstone projects. Others participated as researchers through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Center (UROC). Some were hired through grants. Others did independent study research and quite a few participated in Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURES). One class (shown on the right) constructed the original fog collectors deployed in the Library Crescent to provide water to sapling oak trees.
Our story
The idea of collecting water from fog came about during a 10-day silent meditation retreat. The full story can be heard from a 2011 TEDx talk that I gave in Monterey.
Our expertise
We are ideally located in a renown foggy region, and we have been deeply engaged in this work for more than 20 years. University property and nearby lands have become a center of many of our research efforts, so we have ample opportunity and experience to collect fog near us.
Community impact
The fog collectors that are publicly viewable at our Library Crescent were originally deployed as a part of a class project in 2018. We were asked to build and deploy these in order to supply water to sapling oaks that were planted here. We were provided funding from PG&E to mitigate trees that had to be cut elsewhere. Each of the 10 fog collectors deployed had a rain gauge and data logger associated with it so that we could determine how much water they collected. These fog collector also have become a prime location for prospective student tours and some of the students who choose to come to CSUMB have done so because this was so interesting to them!
