Water For Survival

Water for survival

Water will be as necessary as food,you will obviously not want to eat bad food and so its equally important for you to have good water.

Depending on where you are or where you plan on surviving will vary from easy to extreme on finding/getting decent water.

I`d like to list some tips which will be helpful in a survival situation,as well as get tips from others.


Solar Still

A solar still imo is the best way to get clean water,from salty,dirty etc water.
They are simple to make,so long as you have a plastic sheeting,such as for example a large garbage bag.

Depending on preparation and room available,a solar still can be made from Perspex.
Which will last longer than a plastic bag,simply make a pyramid from the Perspex which can be erected easily on site,at a guess I`d say a meter square at its base.

Here`s some pics of simple solar stills.




Fresh water from the coast

I`ve not tested this though I will shortly,its said if you go over the dune on the beach and dig until you come to water,the first inch to two inch`s will be fresh,as salt water is denser than fresh water.

I may try this on the weekend,just for the experiment.



Water from tree`s
Depending on the vegetation around you,water from tree`s maybe very helpful.

Once again you will need a plastic garbage bag,find a branch which has a lot of green foliage in case it with the bag,have a corner of bag pointing straight down and seal as best as possible the opening of the bag,the moisture from the leaves will condensate as like a solar still and will gather and run to the bottom corner.



Water on the move
If your on the move and fortunate enough to find water as you go,it’s a great investment to get a small portable water filter.

Such as Katadyn Water Filters Seen Here

Water from streams may look clear and fresh,however you never know what is up stream,such as a dead animal contaminating it.One of the last things you will want is to become ill in a survival situation.

The filters can be used on any type of water and cleaning the filter is simple as wire brushing the ceramic core to remove the build up.

Solar stills do indeed work, but as seen on the lost at sea episode of surviverman they only produce a very small amount of water and you must remain stationary to use one . assuming you were at a base and were not moving on a solar stills could supplement your water supply but you would need a number of them. the best thing you can do for water is to obtain detail maps of areas you would wish to bug out to and them ascertain where you might setup near a stream that is too small to attract much notice. recon the areas in advance and locate water sources not noted even on detailed maps. agricultural areas often have stock ponds and wells for irrigation that could be tapped. kytadine camp filters are available and use gravity to filter water through several filter elements eliminating the need to pump water through a small unit but these have the drawback of being sort of large(about the size of an office waste paper basket) and they ,as do all filter systems benefit from prefiltering through something like several layers of tightly woven cloth to remove gross particles and silt. you should also consider chemical water treatment as there are several different types and these are very compact to carry but will not clarify the water so again prefiltering would help. if you know where you will set up your base you can cache water along the route and at the base. water will not spoil like milk or other drinks but it can get stale due to contamination and can be treated to restore it to potability. unfortunetaly water is one of the key limiting factors in survival as you can only live for about 3 days without it and in hot or cold climates or when working hard it takes even more water to survive.

water from trees ? be warned - it tastes DISGUSTING , i mean really foul

yes water from a lot of sources can be foul tasting but once the water has been collected and processed through a filter system it's unlikely to have any unpleasant taste and in a survival situation given the proper equipment i would not pass up a mud puddle.