Hey BrainStuff, Jonathan here.
Lots of situations can leave you stranded
in the wild without supplies: Camping miscommunications,
unexpected side quests, alien abductions with
imprecise return drops, and so on.
Whatever the reason you find yourself out
there, you’ll need to find water.
A minimum of two quarts per day to maintain
good health – that is, to keep your blood
circulating.
Which you want to do.
And that brings us to today’s question:
How do you find water in the wild?
But first, I should mention that this information
is for your education only.
Legally speaking, I can’t recommend that
you do anything I say.
Let’s assume that you can’t find any large
sources of fresh water: There’s not a raincloud
in the sky, and no streams, rivers, or lakes
nearby.
You can dig a well.
Look for mud, or damp soil in a dry riverbed
-- there may be groundwater near the surface.
Dig a hole about a foot wide and a foot deep.
If there’s water, your well will start filling
up.
Even in the desert, you can try digging at
the low point between dunes, near vegetation.
Put rocks in the bottom of your well to keep
sediment from stirring up into the water,
and line the sides with wood to prevent the
walls from caving in.
Well water needs to be purified before you
drink it.
Give it a boil for 10 minutes.
Even water that looks clean can harbor nasty
microbes that will make you sicker than I
get after I have shrimp.
But if your wells turn up dry, you can create
structures to collect water from thin air.
Like a solar still.
You’ll need some plastic sheeting, a container
to collect the water, and a rock.
Having a length of tubing or some definitely-non-poisonous
vegetation would be a bonus.
Choose a damp bit of ground that gets sunlight
for most of the day.
Dig a bowl-shaped hole about 3 feet across
and 2 feet deep.
In the bottom, dig out enough space to place
your container.
If you have a tube, place one end at the bottom
of the container and secure the other end
on the surface outside the hole.
If you have some leaves or other greenery
that you know for sure are not toxic, tear
them up and add them to the walls of the bowl.
Place the plastic loosely over the hole and
hold down the edges with rocks.
But, not the one you've put aside.
That one, you want to put in the center of
the sheet so that it sags in a little more
than a foot, directly over the container.
Add more rocks and soil to the edges of the
sheet for stability.
The heat of the sun will evaporate moisture
in the ground, producing condensation on the
plastic.
It’ll drip and collect in your container,
and you can either sip it directly through
your tube or retrieve the container at sunset.
If your energy is low, you'll want to avoid
all that digging.
The transpiration technique yields less water,
but all it requires is tying a knot in a plastic
bag.
Find a definitely-non-poisonous leafy tree
or shrub that will be in the sun for most
of the day.
Tie the bag around a branch.
Over the course of the day, the plant will
‘exhale’ (or transpire) water vapor that’ll
collect at the bottom of the bag.
Untie it or poke a hole in it to collect the
water, then tie it off again and reuse the
bag.
Plants transpire a lot – about 10 percent
of the moisture in our air comes from transpiration.
Water you get from a solar still or transpiration
should be safe to drink, but it never hurts
to give it a boil.
But hey, have you ever been in a survival
situation?
What other survival how-tos would you like
us to cover?
Let us know, and to learn lots more, head
to our home planet: HowStuffWorks.com.
