Water is critical to your well being – whether you are facing a survival situation or not.

If you are facing a survival situation, finding water it is critical that finding water be one of your top priorities after you have ensured your immediate safety; here are a few ways of finding water, particularly in Spring.

Cut a Grape Vine

Grape vines (the genus Vitis) can yield water throughout the spring season in North America, similar to the water vines in the tropics. Make certain that you have a grape species with thorough identification. Small vines about ½ inch in diameter can be cut a few feet above ground and will drip water for several hours.

Larger vines can have a notch cut in them and they will gush out water.

Catch the Rain

The same rain that muddies up the streams can also be an efficient source of clean water. The rain is as clean as the air and the surfaces it has touched. It requires no further purification if you catch it in a clean container.

Rain water that is caught in a questionable container should be disinfected.

Find a Spring

Springs and their slower moving cousins (seeps) are more common than you might think. Look for the head waters of streams, and look for places where water flowing out of holes in the sediment.

What you don’t want to do is drink raw water out of a stream. Drinking water out of waterways (without disinfecting it) is the fast track to water-borne illness.

The Survival Principle of Three states that you can go three days without water depending on your survival environment.

If it is Spring time, you should have multiple water opportunities; just make sure you purify it unless it is rainwater straight from the sky falling into a sanitized container.

To learn more about finding water and purifying it, check out Outdoor Life.

Featured Image via Outdoor Life