5.11 — Drought, Water and Food Security

The slowest crisis in this Part, which means the most preparation time and the least attention.

And the household-level version — the taps stop, or the water is unsafe, or supply chains break for a fortnight — is far more common than a regional drought and is what most readers will actually meet.

Water: how much you need

Roughly three litres per person per day for drinking in ordinary conditions, and considerably more in heat or with exertion.

Plus water for cooking and basic hygiene.

A working planning figure is around 10 to 15 litres per person per day for all uses, and you can function on far less for a short period.

And the storage recommendation from 1.4: three days minimum, and two weeks if you live somewhere with unreliable supply.

Making water safe

Because the most common household water emergency is not absence but contamination — after floods, storms, pipe damage, or supply interruption.

Three methods, in order of reliability.

Boiling

The most reliable and it needs no equipment beyond heat.

Bring to a rolling boil for at least one minute. At high altitude, three minutes.

It kills bacteria, viruses and parasites.

It does not remove chemical contamination, heavy metals or salt.

Filtering

A filter with a fine enough pore size removes bacteria and parasites.

Most portable filters do not remove viruses, which matters in areas where water is contaminated with sewage — so a filter plus a chemical treatment or boiling is the safer combination.

And a cloth or sand pre-filter to remove sediment makes everything else work better.

Chemical treatment

Chlorine tablets or drops, or iodine, used according to the instructions on the product.

Effective against most pathogens, less reliable against some parasites, and requires the stated contact time — which people frequently cut short.

Household bleach can be used in an emergency in very small quantities, and the correct dose depends on the concentration, so this is a case where following a published instruction for your specific product matters rather than guessing.

What not to drink

Floodwater (5.4).

Water from an unknown source without treatment.

Seawater, ever. It dehydrates you faster than drinking nothing.

And urine. This appears in survival folklore and it does not work — it is a concentrated waste solution and drinking it accelerates dehydration.

Finding water

In a household or short-term emergency, in order of accessibility.

The water heater tank, which typically holds a substantial quantity and is a reservoir most people forget.

The toilet cistern — the tank, not the bowl — if no chemical cleaner has been used.

Pipes, drained by opening the highest tap in the house to let air in and the lowest to collect.

Ice.

And rainwater, collected on a clean surface, which is generally safe with basic treatment.

Outdoors, 7.2 covers finding water in the wild.

Making water go further

During a supply interruption.

Use it in order of cleanliness. **Wash vegetables in water you then use for plants. Rinse water becomes flushing water.

Sponge wash rather than shower.

Cook in ways that do not require draining.

And flush selectively. This is the largest single household use and reducing it changes the arithmetic more than anything else.

Food

What to store

The principle: store what you already eat, and rotate it.

**A stock of specialised emergency food that nobody likes will sit until it expires. A deeper stock of the rice, dal, oil, salt and tinned goods you already use is consumed and replaced continuously.

A practical two-week household store: grains and pulses, cooking oil, salt, sugar, tea or coffee, tinned or dried protein, dried milk, and something for morale — biscuits, chocolate, whatever the household actually likes.

Plus: any specific dietary or infant requirement, which is the item most often forgotten.

And a manual tin opener.

If cooking fuel is limited

Foods that need no cooking or minimal cooking.

Soaking rather than boiling — dal, rice and grains can be soaked for hours and cooked much faster, using far less fuel.

And a pressure cooker uses substantially less fuel than an open pot, which matters in a prolonged interruption.

Food safety without refrigeration

Keep the fridge and freezer closed. A full freezer holds temperature for a day or more if unopened; a fridge for several hours.

Eat perishables first, then frozen, then stored.

And when in doubt, discard. Foodborne illness during a period without medical access is a serious complication.

Sanitation

The thing nobody plans for and the thing that causes disease outbreaks in every prolonged emergency.

If water supply fails, toilets stop working quickly.

The basic arrangement: a lined bucket with a tight lid, with something absorbent added after each use — sawdust, ash, soil, or cat litter. Kept away from living areas and away from any water source.

Hand washing is the single most important disease-control measure, and where water is short, an alcohol-based sanitiser is the substitute.

And keep waste well away from any water collection point. Contamination of water by sanitation failure is the classic mechanism of post-disaster illness.

Regional drought

A different scale, and the household-relevant parts.

Water use restrictions escalate and should be complied with early rather than resisted.

Prices of food rise, and the effect on a household budget can be substantial and prolonged.

Health effects are indirect but real: heat (5.10), poorer nutrition, water-borne disease from degraded supply, and dust.

And for anybody in agriculture, drought is a livelihood crisis as much as a water one — which puts Part 2's material on financial triage and mental health directly in scope.

Before

Five things.

Store water — three days minimum, two weeks if supply is unreliable.

Keep a means of treating water: boiling is free, and tablets or a filter cost very little.

Keep a two-week food stock of things you actually eat, rotated.

Have a plan for sanitation without water.

And know where your local water sources are — a well, a tank, a public standpipe, a neighbour with storage.

What to do with this page

Three litres per person per day for drinking, and store three days minimum.

Boiling for one minute is the most reliable treatment and needs no equipment.

Never drink seawater or urine. Both accelerate dehydration.

Store what you already eat and rotate it.

And plan for sanitation. It is the item nobody thinks about and it is what causes the disease outbreaks.

Next: 5.12 — the kit, the plan and the drill, which is where this Part becomes something you actually own.