Browsing by Author "Sotunde, Sobowale Adedapo"

In meeting the crop water needs in the arid and semi-arid regions, alternative source of water must be explored, like the harvesting of dew and fog. To estimate the quantity of potential harvestable water in semi-arid Nigeria, a 3-hourly meteorological data from 8 weathers stations across the semi-arid region of Nigeria were analysed. The data; from January to December 2009; was retrieved in June 2015 from the European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) database, by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). The available data includes the wind speed (WS) and direction, air temperature, and the relative humidity (RH). From the available data, the following needed parameters to calculate the potential water harvestable in each area were first calculated; the air saturated vapour pressure, air vapour pressure, absolute humidity, and finally the potential water harvestable through air humidity over 3hours (WH3). Only the RH ≥69% were used in calculating the WH3, at lower values water harvesting isn’t possible. Also, only the WS ≤2 was used, at higher values of WS, evaporation occurs. All the areas showed the possibility of harvesting water from dew and fog. The possibility was however higher during the wet season both in quantity and in frequency in all the areas considered than in the dry season.