It has always been a puzzle to me where Britain – England especially – gets its constant and reliable supply of tap water from, since it has no big mountains or great rivers or large lakes.   

“The water crisis is as critical as the climate crisis and Britain is lagging behind when it comes to renewable water resources.  The UK had one of the lowest levels of renewable water resources and was easily the most expensive of 7 countries compared in this TABLE   It also had considerably higher levels of water consumption and leakage.”

Who hasn’t thought how incredibly foolish it is that all the rainwater which falls on our roofs and streets is just allowed to run away?  

OB-Cities have countless thousands of small roofs, none of which collect rain-water 

WHY NOT JUST ONE BIG ROOF..?

What if, instead of thousands of small roofs, one big roof were to collect all our water..?  

Why not live in buildings with A BIG ROOF which collects ALL the rainwater which falls on it..?

Enormous resources are spent building dams and reservoirs far away from where the water is needed and then more money has to be spent on “treatment” plants before delivering the water through a complex network of water mains and pumping stations and domestic pipework.  

Gibraltar’s water catchment.  It was dismantled in the 1990’s because the rain mostly falls on the densely populated Atlantic-facing west side of the mountain, not the relatively dry and barren east side.

What about the risk of contamination..?

The risk and degree of contamination is much reduced if the collection point and storage area is ONSITE and as close as possible to the consumer.   And why waste so much valuable drinking quality water flushing loos, for showers and baths, watering the plants, or even for cooking purposes..? We only need drinking quality water for, well, drinking..!  

Every home should have one of these

WATER CONSERVATION & RE-CYCLING

It’s a crime against commonsense that vast quantities of purified drinking-quality water are flushed down loos, baths, showers, and kitchen sinks, etc – and not re-cycled and re-used..!  “Grey” water from showers, baths, sinks, washing machines, etc, is relatively easy to “clean-up”.   Even the “brown water” from toilets, can be re-cycled.   The flush toilet is probably the biggest single domestic source of waste water, despite water-saving “dual-flush” systems.  The process and practicalities of re-cycling used water is quite complex but…

Water Re-cycling would be much simpler and more economical in OA-Cities. 

Vacuum-flush loos, as used on aircraft and cruise-ships, which use very little water could be installed in OA-Cities

HARVESTING SEA MIST

Oasis Cities could act as giant “Atmospheric Water Generators” (AWG) 

Potential of Sea Mists

OA-Cities located on barren coasts – such as those north of Cape Town, or Perth in Western Australia – could exploit sea mists, thus potentially “greening” coastal deserts.   Although the picture below was taken on the gulf coast of Florida, a warm and wet area, a similar phenomenon occurs where there are cold sea currents along very arid coastlines such as Namaqualand, Namibia, or the Atacama Desert of Chile and Peru.   Heat wafting up from the barren coast sucks moisture-laden air, brought in by prevailing onshore winds, high up and carries it far inland.  However, if a steep hill or tall buildings are next to the coast,  clouds can form right at the shoreline.

As the buildings force the air to climb, the slight cooling from the change in altitude is just enough to bring the air to its saturation point, creating a personal fog bank.

Lions Head, Cape Town – clouds sometimes form around its peak and nowhere else

Mist-catching net (Atacama Desert, Chile)