Anyone who has read the exquisite Dune novels from Frank Herbert will remember the dew collectors. Pits filled with ovals of plastic, cooling in the night and condensing moisture from the air to provide basic sustenance. Coming from such a lush green place, as I did, it was hard to imagine a more alien existence. That was a fabricated world from the mind of a science fiction genius. It seems though, that the ideas of Frank Herbert have become a reality for some in this world.

In the arid coasts of Northwest India one engineer is searching for a solution to the region's drinking water crisis. Dr. Girja Sharan has installed a large rectangular tank on the grounds of a school in the area. He's experimenting to verify if dew formed from water vapour in the air can provide a viable supplement to human drinking water. An array of flat, plastic-lined panels run along the surface of the tank. At night the panels are kept at a temperature cooler than the surrounding air, allowing tiny droplets of water dew to condense on their surface. 

The droplets slowly trickle one-by-one down into collection troughs, combining to form a dribble to be stored within the tank. During the night the water accumulates into a relatively substantial amount. In one night 40 litres of water were collected. Dr. Sharan believes that ignoring dew as a viable water source, as many scientists do, is a mistake. "They think it's too small to worry about," he says. He believes that in India's arid coastal areas dew can be a "significant supplementary source of drinking water."

Indeed, for the school involved in the project, dew is the only source of drinking water available. One teacher at the school noted that before the dew collector had been installed students had to bring water with them to school or to return to their village in the afternoon to drink. Dr. Sharan's team has also installed dew collectors on the roofs of houses, capable of capturing roughly 10 litres of water in one night.

Water scarcity is nothing new for those living in the arid regions of our planet. Having being forced into those places by political machinations, or simply having watched as their climate altered over time, they have learnt the hard way just how vital water is to life. However, Global Warming may bring that harsh lesson to many more of us before long.

It has been known for some time that the glaciers of the Himalayas, the source of water for one-sixth of the world's population, are under serious threat due to Global Warming. That fact was reiterated by Greenpeace in this article back in 2005. "Scientists predict that 80 percent of these glaciers will disappear within 30 years if current warming rates are maintained." The report explains.

For centuries, glaciers around the world have acted as natural water storage reservoirs, releasing their precious contents slowly over time. So just how will one-sixth of the world's population get their water when the Himalayan glaciers are gone? Will they resort to harvesting dew from the air? Well, that's one possibility, but hardly a realistic one. While Dr. Sharan has demonstrated that dew can provide a supplement to human drinking water in some areas, it is not a viable replacement for drinking water, not-to-mention the large amounts of water needed for agricultural irrigation.

Disappearing glaciers are impacting people and environments all over the world and as usual, human beings will not be the only casualties of our short-sightedness. Glaciers from Norway to Montana are quickly disappearing. In Bolivia the loss of the Andes glaciers threatens the water supply to millions of people. In the summer of 2007, for the first time in America's Glacier National Park's history, Gem Glacier was snow free. In this article, Dan Fagre of the U.S. Geological Survey explains how melt water from glaciers may have already peaked in the park and a dry future awaits man and beast alike.