Water is the most vital resource to life and thus to civilization. All living things need water to survive in more than one way. Clear fresh water is absolutely necessary for the sustenance of humans, animals and crops. Even brief absences of fresh water will be devastating on all but a handful of plants and animals that evolution has prepared for dry climates. Water is also vital to the hygiene needs of people. Good hygiene promotes good health, poor hygiene invites illness and death. In this way, water for proper hygiene is also vital. Water is needed for sanitation. Cleaning of all manner of cookware and tools in good hot water is about the only way to prevent illness from spreading. It's also remarkable helpful in disposing of human and animal waste. Lastly let's not forget the industrial application of water. There are thousands of products that are fabricated with water playing a vital role in some ways the average person would never think of. For all of these reasons, a good water supply is absolutely critical to a civilization.

I plan to handle water as a resource very differently in this game than other resources. I am not going to track the gathering and use of water on a unit by unit basis. Instead I will present some issues below that players must consider and should work up plans about how they will handle their water needs. Even though I will not be tracking water like other resources. I will be paying attention to player's general management of this, and it will have effects on the civilization as a whole. Below numbers will be presenting the general water needs of people, animals, crops, etc. Under normal circumstances these numbers will only be for reference, but in unusual circumstances such as drought, you may just want to resort to having to manually water your fields ( one hell of an undertaking). Numbers listed below include a person or animals total water use. This includes water used to drink, bathe and clean property. When water is in short supply, people will naturally clean and bath less and continue to consume their normal amounts. Lack of sanitation has it's own associated problems but there will have to be significant water shortage to effect people health based on it's lack of consumption.

There are five general places from which water may be obtained

The Ocean- The great thing about getting water from the ocean is that it is a limitless supply. The problem with it is that it contains a lot of salt. Though recent studies suggest a person can subsist on small amounts of sea water at very minimal health for periods of time if they only drink a small amount of sea water and begin doing so prior to becoming dehydrated, this is not at all ideal. Those individuals who consume sea water after being dehydrated or who drink it in normal quantities will suffer lethal illnesses. Therefore, sea water seems an ideal source of water for cleaning, bathing and industrial uses, but it is an awful source for drinking water.

Rivers and Streams. In most cases, rivers and steams are fresh water. Water comes from rain and enters the water table and eventually makes it's way to little tributaries which flow together. There are a few rare examples of sea water flowing inland into lakes through rivers and streams caused by queer topography where inland water basins are below sea level. Normally however water from streams and rivers is quite fresh. Rivers and streams have two huge drawbacks. First, the amount of water flowing through a stream or river at any given time is greatly dependent upon how much water is in the water table as the result of recent precipitation. Some streams and even rivers are known to dry up during low rain periods. During heavy rain periods. Some rivers greatly overflow their banks. One of the great rivers in China is known to regularly over flow it's banks every few years killing tens of thousands of people each time. Additionally is the concern of what is happening to the water upstream. Even in the modern era, water from rivers in industrial nations are full of industrial waste. In third world countries found in Africa and Asia water is made foul by people and animals bathing which includes their elimination of waste. Both of these go a long way towards making life for people down river very bad. The flip side of this is that rivers and streams are pretty good at getting rid of waste you throw into them.

Lakes- Lakes are generally fresh water, though some are saltwater. Salt water from a lake is as bad as saltwater from the ocean. Freshwater from a lake is ideal in a lot of ways. There's lost of it, its fresh, and you know where it's coming from. Lakes unlike rivers are stagnant and will keep what you throw in them. Lakes are easy to pollute because nothing is swept away.

Rain Water- Rain water is very good for just about anything. In a world where the air is clean and not filled with harmful gases, rain comes down in pretty desirable condition. Collecting rain water before it comes down into dirty puddles is the hard part. Modern 10 X 10 plastic tarps that can be purchased for $5 do this wonderfully. With medieval technology, cloth tarps are far less efficient as water drips through and they much more difficult in terms of material and labor to fabricate. Not to mention long term "permanent" water collection systems tend to quickly collect and grow undesirable material on them such as dirt, fungus, mold, decomposing leaves, berries and animal waste. These defeat the purpose of fabricating things to collect your nice clean rain water.

Wells- A well is simply a hole you dig into the ground and hope you hit the water table at a nice place. If you're really lucky you might hit an underground aquifer. Because they fill from the water table, their water is basically dependent on recent precipitation and can go dry in dry times. Well water is nice and clean to start with. The water that comes in is nicely filtered by the ground. A problems with wells is that things that fall down them such as small animals and leaves tend to stay rotting at the bottom of them. This is why people take great pains in bricking up as much of the shaft they can to prevent animals from burrowing into the shaft and falling in. Wells also need to be cleaned frequently with a person going down on a rope to remove what they can. Anther problem with a well is that water quantities are limited. Water slowly seeps into the well through the ground. Its not like a flowing river from which gallon after gallon my be pulled without noticing the difference. A nicely dug well may support the water needs of about 10 people.

When dealing with water supply for human consumption and for cleaning of cookware and such, you have three primary concerns. The first of which are foreign particles which end up in the water supply in various ways. foreign particles can be simple things from dirt to feces, and some are far worse then others. Secondly you need to concern yourself with living organisms in water such as viruses, bacteria, and fungus. The final concern are solutes. These are chemicals that actually devolve into the water and can be quite tricky to remove.

Particles- Particle are the most obvious and common threat to a water supply. It's amazing the kinds of things that can find their way into water. Many of the particles you find in water are basically safe to consume, but can be bad for other water uses. More of these particles can be outright unhealthy to drink, and are carriers for harmful organisms. Some particles are simply toxic in their own right. Fortunately a large percentage of particles can be removed from water with a filter of some sort. Another method of removing particles is to distill the water. Both of these methods will be discussed below.

Organisms- Organisms off all kinds live in water and on particles within the water. A large percentage or microorganisms that live anyplace are basically benign. There however are a portion of bacteria, viruses, and fungus that can be harmful and even deadly to different animals ( like humans) with exposure. Organisms are so small that many can't be filtered out and must be killed. A most common way to do this is by boiling the water. Because distilling water includes boiling it, distillation is also great. In modern times we have developed chemicals to put in water to keep limit organisms living within, though this is science far beyond the times we are discussing.

Solutes- Solutes are chemicals that get within the water and mix with it, These are generally other liquids and solids that dissolve in the water. Solutes are very hard to eliminate from water. Filters are only of little use. Boiling the water also does less, occasionally forcing some into gas and condensing others as film on the side of the pot, but very not much reliably. Likewise distilling can separate some solutes, but many go right along with the water. In most cases when water sources are found to have dangerous solutes, the only real option is finding an alternative source of water.

Digging a well is a simple idea that is a lot of hard work in practice. You can dig a well anyplace and have about a good 70% chance of hitting water. Digging a well will require that a person have access to digging equipment like shovel, rope and a bucket. Your average well is about 20 ft deep and a 5 X 5 wide. This makes for 500 units of dirt, clay and stone which will need to be removed, via a bucket hauling it to the surface. The average person can dig out 15 units of the necessary 500 in a day of work. In places where you are far distant from rivers, lakes etc., wells often need to be MUCH deeper to strike water. In such places 100 FT deep is average ( requiring that 2500 units of earth be dug) The needed depth of the wells will be at the game masters discretion. Skilled miners can dig at a rate identical to their tunnel mining soft rock. The average well will produce about 60 units of water per month ( this is enough to fulfill the needs of about 12 people).

Having a skilled dowser will much improve your chances of striking water. When a dowser helps to find a suitable well location, the odds of that well successfully striking water increases 5% per rank of the dowser. Additionally there is the chance of striking greater amounts of water. Assuming the well is due to strike water at all, their is a 3% chance per rank of the dowser that the well will strike a pocket of abundant water that will produce 250 Units of water per month ( enough for 50 people). These wells will be know as abundant wells. Furthermore, there is a 5% per rank of the dowser that an Abundant well will actually turn out to be an underground Aquifer which will produce 1000 units of water per month ( enough for 200 people).

Many people choose to build a lining into their well walls. This is not necessary, but serves three different purposes. First, it prevents digging and tunneling animals from burrowing right into your well shaft and falling to their death into the water below; polluting it. Secondly it prevents the shaft itself from collapsing in and burying all your hard well digging work ( not to mention for the safety of those who occasionally have to go into the well to clean it.). Lastly, you can build up the lining of a well three extra ft to put a top on it which will prevent people and animals accidentally falling into it. For this you have three real options. The first is a lumber lining. A lumber lining must be constructed by a carpenter of at least Adept rank. He can "tongue, grove and peg" lumber into place making a nice wall for your well. This requires 10 units of lumber and 10 hours of labor per ft deep the well will be. The next option is flagstone and mortar. This wall type can be built by anybody at a cost of 20 units of flagstone, 5 units of mortar and 5 hours of labor per ft deep the well is. Lastly is the brick method. Brick wall linings can be built by anybody. They require 10 units of brick, 2.5 units of mortar and 2 hours of labor per ft deep the well is. Flagstone and mud walls have been used, thought they prove little more beneficial then the mud and stone from which the shaft is already dug.

Boiling water is pretty simple over all. All you really need is a metal pot and fuel to burn. Most people will be smart enough to boil the water they will consume, though some will not be. Boiling water will require 2 units of fuel ( wood, coal or charcoal) per unit of water. If your people are boiling there water, expect them consume extra fuel. Fortunately in winter times when the most fuel is being spent anyhow, most people will boil their water with the same fuel there heating their homes with. If you would like to pre boil water for you people and set up an operation, logistics are pretty easy. A unit of water will boil in about a half hour, consuming 2 units of fuel. You will need 1 kettle or 2 metal pots per unit you wish to boil at any given time. It should be noted that boiling water in clay/pottery pots is much more difficult than in metal pots. If you choose to operate a water boiling operation using clay rather than metal pottery, the time and fuel to boil water is four times as much ( 2 hours and 8 units of fuel for 1 unit of water)

Distilling water is a pretty good way to clean it, though is not very easy or cheap. The boiling of water into vapor does very well in killing off a huge percent of microorganisms within ( those that remain are generally from the cool part of the still itself). Furthermore it leaves behind in the stills belly anything which will not turn to vapor, or which will only do so at a much higher temperature than water does. It's also pretty decent at removing things which condensate back to liquid / devolved solid at a cooler temperature or over a longer period of time than water does. Because of this, Distilling is a very good way to get rid of a large percentage of bad things that may lurk in water. Though it is not fool proof and many contaminations can bypass it. One great advantage to distilling water is the fact that it can turn salt water into fresh water. The most common sorts of stills within the time and technology frame within which we are working is called the "pot still". A pot still takes in a large amount of water in it's belly, boils it into vapor which comes out the top and condenses back to water. Information about building a pot still can be found in the section for pottery and clay goods. Far more advanced stills can be made from cast metals and there fabrication are dealt with in the blacksmiths section. A serious problem with medieval stills is that about half the liquid you evaporate escapes and does not condense back to water. A single Pot Still working all month can distill 500 units of water into 250 units of cleaner water. Distilling water of course requires the expenditure of fuel to boil and evaporate it. Each unit of water to be distilled will require 20 units of fuel in a pottery Still or 10 units of fuel in a metal Still and will yield 1/2 unit of clean water. If your distilling salt water, you will also produce 1/20th a unit of sea salt for each unit of salt water you distill.

Water filters are wonderful for removing particles from water and can help limit some microorganisms and solutes present. However, the things they filter out remain within the filter, and micro organisms often thrive there because of this. This means that you must change filters often and boil water after filtering or you may be doing more harm than good. A good filter may be made from a piece of pottery pipe, a square ft of cloth, a unit of cotton, 1/2 unit of sand and 1/2 unit of charcoal ( all of these should be as clean and boiled as possible before the filter is built). This type of filter can filter up to 500 units of water over a month. After this month, the filter really should be disposed of and is now of little filtering value.

• An average human being should have 62 ounces of water per day for good health. This means 2 units of water for drinking per month, the cleaner the better.

• A human should have a total of 5 units of water available to them per month. Two of this nice and clean for drinking, the other three for cooking, hygiene, cleaning and sanitation purposes. Less then 5 but more than 2 will result in non-dehydration health issues due to lack of proper cleanliness. Less than 2 and a person will begin to have dehydration health issues in addition to those from lack of cleanliness.

• A human MUST have a least 1 unit of water per month or they will start to have serious problems from dehydration.

Just like people, Animals too need water. Most often the people who care for or work with them will tend to these needs without much concern. Generally this is taking um to a near by lake or stream, or dishing water from a well. Numbers here are presented if you feel a need to assure your animals get filtered, distilled or boiled water, or if you have limited water concerns for your society such as dependence on well water, or drought.

Each head of cattle drinks 15 gallons of water per day, This conveniently works out to about 2 units per day or 56 units per month.

Each Sheep requires about 7 units of water per month

An average horse requires about 45 units of water per month.

The first question that must be raised is how much water is needed per area of land in a month. Average monthly rainfall during growing season in most bread basket areas is about 3.5 inches. However, 2 inches is about the minimum before you start to have real problems... What does this mean? It means if you want to manually water farm land, you need to drop 2 inches of water over every square inches of it in a month to keep it producing crops. Two inches over a square ft, is 1/6 a unit of water per square foot of crop land. Now, an acre of land is 43,560 square feet; which will require 7,260 units of water per month or just short of 250 units per day. Considering water weighs a bit more than 60 lbs per unit, that's a lot of back breaking labor. A single man who devotes himself to watering a single acre of land each day can keep it watered effectively. This must be a person separate from the farmer who has dozens of other tasks to do with land he is farming. This is also assuming that the person watering the land has the water he is going to use on site. The logistics of transporting 250 units of water per day to a acre of farm land from the waters source is a whole different consideration.