Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff, I'm Lauren volc Obam, and I've got a classic brain stuff episode for you today. Our erstwhile host, Christian Sagar, has a practical one for you. Three ways that you can find water in the wild. Hey, brain Stuff, it's Christian Sagar here. Lots of situations can leave you stranded in the wild without supplies. You could have camping miscommunications, unexpected side quests, or I don't know, alien abductions with
imprecise return drops. You know, all that stuff. Whatever the reason you find yourself out there, you're gonna need to find water and a minimum of two quarts per day to maintain good health. That is, to keep your blood circulating, which you know you want to do. And that brings us to today's question, how do you find water in the wild. Well, I'm gonna walk through three methods. There's
well digging, solar still making, and transpiration collection. But first I should mention that this information is for your education only use it at your own risk. Legally speaking, I can't recommend that you do anything I say. So, all right, we got past that. Let's assume that you can't find any large sources of fresh water. There's not a rain cloud in the sky and no streams, rivers, or lakes nearby. That is, you've looked for animal tracks, lush green vegetation,
and swarming insects to no avail. You can't find any water, you can't hear it, and you've checked out the local valleys and other low lying areas. But you can dig a well. Look for mud or damp soil in a dry river bed. There may be groundwater near the surface, so dig a hole about a foot wide and a foot deep. If there's water, you're 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. You should never drink salt water, but you can dig a fresh water well near saltwater. Starting at the shoreline, walk about a hundred feet back from the water and dig a hole three to five feet deep. If the water that collects there
is still salty back away even further. Well water needs to be purified before you drink it, give it a boil for ten minutes. Even water that looks clean can harbor nasty microbes that will make you sicker than a dog. But if your wells turn up dry, you can create structures to collect water from thin air. This is a solar still. You'll need some plastic sheeting, a container to collect the water, and one rock. Having a length of tubing or some definitely non poisonous vegetation would you know
also be a bonus. Choose a damp bit of ground that gets sunlight for most of the day. Dig a bowl shaped whole about three ft across us and two 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. Put your rock 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 to give it 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. But if your energy is low, you'll want to avoid all that digging. Then that's when the transpiration technique comes in and it yields less water. But all it requires is tying a knot in a plastic bag. Find a you know, definitely non poisonous leafy tree again or a shrub that will be in the sun for most of the day, and
you tie the bag around one of its branches. Over the course of the day, this plant will exhale or transpire water vapor that will 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 ten per cent of the moisture in our air comes from transpiration. So there you have it, three different ways to get water in the wild. Today's episode was produced by Tyler
Clang and written by me for Brainstuffs YouTube series. If you miss Christian and want to hear more from him, tune into his new pop culture podcast, super Context. And if you like our show and also like not being naked, check out our merch store at t public dot com. Slash brain stuff. For more on this and lots of other survival topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com