<p>Freshwater scarcity remains one of the most pressing challenges confronting society today. Cooling towers (CTs), primarily in thermal power plants, contribute significantly to industrial water loss as drift emission from the CT cells – in the form of fine fog droplets. Fog harvesting meshes have offered a promising solution to capture a portion of this lost water. A fraction of the drift loss can be recovered by strategically placing wettability-engineered meshes near the CT exit, reducing the water loss from the CT. The key factors that influence the efficiency of fog harvesting include the mesh’s shade coefficient (<i>SC</i>), fibre diameter, and the mesh-inclination relative to the oncoming fog. This study aims to experimentally determine the optimal mesh configuration and geometric orientation to maximize fog collection in a lab-scale fog tower that replicates actual cooling tower exit conditions. Results indicate that the mesh with a shade coefficient of ~ 55%, inclined at 45^o to the incident oncoming fog as the most efficient configuration for fog collection in the laboratory-scale cooling tower setup. The study also indicates that, regardless of the <i>SC</i> value, the fog harvesting efficiency increases monotonically up to an inclination of 45^o, beyond which a decline in collection efficiency is observed. Such findings remain critical in optimizing the mesh geometry and inclination to enhance fog capture performance in cooling tower environments.</p>