Survival Water Purification: What You Need to Remember

When we are on a hike, an adventure, at camp, or maybe even lost in a place, we surely need water. We, human beings, are created to survive with water even if we are not in a survival camp. Thus, we must know at least some simple yet important tips about survival water purification.

These following tips are not solely to be applied during survival activities but these can also be adopted in your daily life.

The first thing to do when doing survival water purification is to assess the purity of water. Generally, you must look for clear water – clear as in no algae and no discoloration. The water that is considered better and purer is running water and the water that comes out of the ground such as a spring. Technically, water coming out of the ground is purer than running water over the ground. Water in swamps and marshes is not recommended.

The next thing to consider in survival water purification is the pollutants such as chemicals, heavy metals, silt and suspended materials, bacterial and similar agents. The general rules state that you should not drink water downriver of industry, mine sites, cities and towns, factories, or any human habitation. Water near the roads is also harmful as these are prone to toxic concoctions of pollutants from automobile engines. Further, do not consume water that passes through agricultural land because it may have carried with it toxic chemicals from herbicides, fertilizers, and pesticides.

Now, the main survival water purification may be executed in two methods. First is boiling, which is the surest method to purify the water as it kills any microorganisms in it. In this method, the water should be boiled for at least five minutes, but 20 minutes is safer. Boiling requires heat to be able to purify the water. Thus, you need fire. However, if you do not have a fire-proof container that can be directly placed over the fire, the next option is to do rock boiling. This is a great survival water purification system. You just put stones in the fire to heat them up. Then, remove them and put them into the container that holds the water. The heat will quickly transfer to the water. It is not enough that you heat the water. You need to heat as many stones as you can until you bring the water to a boil with the 5 to 20 minutes required boiling time.

The second method in survival water purification is filtering. Nowadays, there are many commercial filters available in the market. But in case you are far from civilization, you may build your own water filter by using a cone of birch bark, or any improvised funnel. Then fill it with layers of charcoal, sand, gravel, and grasses. These will screen out suspended particles and remove microorganisms. You then just pass the water through it several times with another container catching the purified water. There are many more other ways to filter water using the primitive ways.