09 FROM FOG TO RIVER
FOG WATER HARVESTING
Drought in Catalonia is no longer an occasional crisis; it is a structural condition, and the Ter is paying the climate bill. The hydrological imbalance is no longer just a metric: it shows up as ecosystem stress, rural vulnerability, and a river that loses its ability to buffer extremes. A key insight behind this work is the Ter’s interdependence with its alluvial aquifer: when groundwater storage empties, surface flow collapses; without that reserve, the river cannot absorb intense rainfall and flood peaks become sharper and more abrupt. The challenge is not to “add water” artificially, but to recharge the aquifer—slowly, at the tempo of nature.
From Fog to River proposes resource optimization by hacking the water cycle through passive strategies: capturing atmospheric humidity and fog and reinjecting it into the ground. Aligned with the SDGs 2030, the project leverages fog water harvesting, condensing atmospheric microparticles into droplets on porous surfaces, to produce a locally coherent form of resilience in a territory where humidity is often high and infiltration is limited.
The intervention reframes existing rural infrastructure through vernacular technologies and ready-mades. Irrigation pivots - an industrial icon embedded in the landscape - are repurposed into humidity captors using Raschel meshes: water droplets condense, are collected, and are returned to the subsurface to support long-term aquifer recovery. Deployed as a discontinuous system along the Ter basin, the project strengthens landscape connectivity while preserving the rural identity of the territory.
But these structures are not only hydraulic. Each captor is also designed as a rural climate refuge: shade, cooler microclimates, and a plaza rural, a common liminal space where community life can gather again (rest, play, cycling stops, open-air cinema, small performances). In this way, water infrastructure becomes civic infrastructure: a quiet technological gesture that restores hydrology, reactivates the landscape, and rebuilds collective care.
