"Eventually, we will need to find a way to increase the supply of fresh water as conservation and recycled water from existing sources, albeit essential, will not be sufficient to meet human needs," says civil and environmental engineer Praveen Kumar, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.Moist air would be transported from just above the ocean surface to a nearby shore, where cooling systems could condense the water vapor into a liquid.While the researchers haven't provided specifics of their design, they did crunch the numbers on the quantity of extractable moisture across 14 study sites around the world."It hasn't been done before, and I think it is because researchers are so focused on land-based solutions – but our study shows other options do, in fact, exist," says atmospheric scientist Francina Dominguez, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.Fresh water – which is required for drinking, bathing, and irrigation – makes up just 3 percent of the world's water, most of which is too polluted or inaccessible for convenient use."