Introduction
We need water to live. The average person can only survive three days without water. It’s key to know how to make it safe to drink. It’s also important to know that not all water is safe to drink. Interestingly, being able to take radioactivity out of water might be useful, especially with the threat of nuclear war these days.
Desalination of Salt Water
For your own survival NEVER drink salt water. Salt water is four times saltier than blood. If you drink salt water, neutralization must happen to pull water from your body. As a result, your body becomes rapidly dehydrated.
Desalination is turning salt water into fresh water. There are ways to take salt out of water to drink it safely. The two methods are natural distillation or reverse osmosis.
Natural Distillation
Natural distillation is the process of turning salt water into fresh water. You can make your own cloud by trapping rising water vapour. You can let it condense on a surface, such as a plastic bag, then drain it into a something you drink from, like a bowl.
This also happens naturally, where heat and wind turn sea water into water vapour. Fresh water is made when the salt water liquid turns into gas and impurities, such as salt, are left behind.
Within the atmosphere water condenses on airborne particles then rains down again. The rain that hits land falls on land, flowing downhill towards rivers that carry it. It reaches the sea, where it becomes re-salted.
Reverse Osmosis
Reverse osmosis happens when salt water is exposed to more and more pressure. Water is forced to move through a membrane, or filter, that makes water molecules move through it while blocking salt.
Safely Drinking Untreated Water
The methods to make untreated water safe are boiling, filtering, disinfecting. This article will covering boiling and filtering.
Boiling
Step one is to boil the water. This kills disease-causing germs, such as viruses, bacteria, and parasites.
If the water is cloudy, you can filter it through a clean cloth, paper tower, coffee filter, or let it settle. Then you can draw off the clear water using the following steps:
- Bring the clear water to a rolling boil for 1 minute (3 minutes if you’re at elevations over 6,500 feet).
- Let the boiled water cool.
- Keep the boiled water in clean containers with tight covers.
Filtration
Many portable water filters can remove disease-causing parasites from drinking water. If you are choosing a portable water filter:
- Pick one with a filter pore size small enough (absolute pore size of 1 micron or smaller) to remove parasites. Portable water filters don’t remove viruses, and most portable filters don’t remove bacteria.
- Read and follow manufacturer’s instructions for the water filter you are using.
- After filtering, add a disinfectant such as iodine, chlorine, or chlorine dioxide to the filtered water to kill any viruses and bacteria.
Dropping River Water Levels
There are a few rivers that have had dropping water levels in 2022. Some of these rivers include the Po, Euphrates, Colorado, and Mississippi river.
Euphrates River
The Euphrates river, known to have flown through the biblical Garden of Eden, runs for nearly 2,800 kilometeres in the Middle East.
Since January 2021, the water level dropped by five metres, hovering dozens of centimetres above “dead level” when turbines are supposed to completely stop producing electricity. Power generation dropped by 70% since 2020 across northeast Syria. Humanitarian groups say two of three portable water stations pump less water or stopped working.
The Po River
The Po, Italy’s longest river, has been transport hub throughout history helping the north of the country turn into an industrial powerhouse. Periods of severe drought are drying the river up, leaving it three meters below the zero gauge height according to experts. This level is far below the seasonal average. Italy declared a state of emergency in July 2022, described as the worst in 70 years. A third of Italy’s population, around 17 million people, live around the Po, as well as half of Italy’s pigs and cattle. One cause of if it is the rainfall deficit of three years and a rise in temperatures.
Mississippi River
Water levels in the Mississippi have risen anywhere from five to 25 feet since its historic low water levels in the fall of 2022. The record low water levels slowed and backed up barge traffic. There was a drop of more than 20 feet over 11 weeks in late 2022. The water level elevation was average or below average according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Officer Lisa Parker.
Summary
How would you collect water during a drought or shortage of water? What are your favourite water treatment techniques?
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