Things to Consider When Looking For Drinking Water
What Can Cause Problems
1: Turbidity
Dirt or sand or whatever suspended in the water. Gross but easily removed by filtration.
2: Parasites and Bacteria
Small, but not that small. Can easily give you diarrhoea or worse. Can be removed by small filters.
3: Viruses
Small as fuck: you can’t really get rid of most viruses using just a filter. You need to boil the water or use some sort of chemical.
4: Chemicals
These are generally runoff from farms – pesticides. Seems both filtration and boiling help avoid these, but not completely. Best to avoid as much as possible.
The Safest Way
Solution
You can get filters that’ll get rid of everything except viruses (dunno about chemicals). Boiling will kill everything, but you still gotta get rid of the turbidity, the dirt. Therefore, I’m using a coarse-ish filter.
Finding Water
Pretty much any water found in the wild is good, then. Follow animals, head downhill, listen, get up high and look around.