The well of life: Water finding & purifying

The well of life: Water finding & purifying

The need for water is one of the few things that can’t be over looked as water accounts for about 75% of our body weight. Without water we soon wither and die. Now let us enter into the study of where to obtain and how to purify this most precious of substances. Why do we need water? Water is needed for a number of reasons in the body from circulation to respiration and converting food to energy. At rest on average we need 2 liters of water per day to survive. When working out or performing a strenuous task we need up to 2 additional liters per hour. Without water our bodies quickly slow down. A lack of water causes dehydration which my result in lethargy, headaches, dizziness & confusion. We can only survive without water for 3 days. This is a very short amount of time making water one of the 1^st three things we most have to survive. Let’s look at the (Rule of 3s) we can survive

3 minutes without air

3 hours without shelter (In extreme temps/ environments)

3 days without water

3 weeks without food

It should be noted that thirst is no indication of how much water you need whereas dark urine is. You should drink small amounts as often as your water supply allows. If you do not have a good supply of water all movement should be limited to cool times of day or to night. Also you should stay in the shade as much as possible to reduce water loss. It is recommended that you not eat if you do not have water to drink with your food as it will deplete your body’s water stores more quickly. Also do not remove your clothes even in the hot sun as layers help to keep moisture close to the body. Lastly the beast place for you to carry water is in you if you can drink do you need the water more than your cantina does. When you do get purified water drink! Fill your containers before starting off again or build a shelter nearby the water supply and wait for rescue.

Now on to finding water> I have been looking at a lot of other wilderness pro’s pages to help me understand the best way to go about finding water and it seems they all agree on about the same thing: dig for it, collect it from the dew in the morning or use a solar still if a water source is not available. The solar still seems to be the least effective of all the ways to create water so use it only if the others are not working. To start with look for water sources that are close to you and visible from the surrounding land scape lakes, rivers or streams. If none of these are available you will be looking for low spots in the surrounding that have dark, heavy foliage areas and or dry river beds. These areas will have a good chance of having underground water supplies that you can tap into for survival. Another good way to get water is to gather it from the early morning dew. Also check depressions or the nooks in trees. Soak up the water from catches with a piece of cloth or some dried grasses wring it into a container, then filter and boil the fluid. If you do see and can identify foliage as non-poisonous you can place these plants in a plastic bag and by a process called transpiration the plant will shed water into the bag.

And now for the purification issue. It is pretty common knowledge that if you drink water that is from a stagnant pool or water that was to close too defecation you will have a good chance of getting sick. Some of these sicknesses can take up to 2 weeks or more to set in. We could go into great detail about the different harmful; stuff but we will for this article focus on how to keep from getting sick. Our 1^st way is the most used and known about: boiling and it is just like it sounds. Create a fire use an object to hold the water over the fire until it is boiling, then let the water cool and drink. There are a few different ideas on how long to boil for but the general consensus is that it should be brought to a boil for at least a few minutes. The 2^nd way to purify is filtering. This method can be done with a store bough filtering system or with one you create using multiple layers of sand, rock and charcoal allowing the water to filter though the different layers. The 3^rd and last method is chemicals you may add things like tincture of iodine 2%, chlorine or alcohol to your water as a way to kill harmful bacteria’s and pathogens. Also they make several water purification tablets for hikers now. The down side to this is that if you use too much you could harm yourself so please do the research on the recommended amounts before you use these.

With proper planning and a little foresight and some luck you should not need to use the methods described here. But in the event you find yourself in a life or death situation we hope that the information provided here can help to get you out safely.

As always thank you for your time and attention. You can follow us on facebook or our blog page. If you would like more information on the subject of wilderness survival check out our friends and pro survival groups at primitive ways, Indefinitely wild.   research for this article was obtained from primitive ways, Indefinitely wild and  the book Extreme Survival .