FOG AND DEW IN THE SUCCULENT KAROO, an indispensible source of water for arid Succulent Karoo shrubs by Ignatious Matimati, Charles Musil, Lincoln Raitt and Edmund February, reprinted with kind permission, from Veld & Flora, published by the BotanicalSociety of South Africa, September 2010

摘要

Of all the earth's resources, water is the most fundamental to life, especially in the arid Succulent Karoo along South Africa's West Coast where the low average annual rainfall is augmented by substantial amounts of fog generated by the cold BenguelaCurrent of the Atlantic Ocean and nocturnal dew resulting from atmospheric water condensation. Fog and dew may provide a vital source of moisture for many rare succulent shrubs that are limited to the fog belt along our and West Coast. Indeed, experimental fog and dew collection devices placed along South Africa's West Coast have shown that fog and dew constitute a considerable portion of the hydrological input which concur with the substantial water yields generated in established fog water collection projects in Chile and other developing countries.