If you know anything about "urban survival" then you know it is not about gun toting, camouflage wearing end-of-the-world types. Rather, it is about learning and practicing a skill set of urban survival techniques that will help you get through the rough times ahead.

Water is something that we take for granted, can't live without, and are used to see flowing freely from the tap. However, history shows us that during times of great economic upheaval, a reliable water source for city dwellers is not something you can take for granted.

Two Ways Your Water Supply is Threatened

The two biggest threats to your endless supply of clean drinking water are an interruption in the power grid and a supply interruption that affects the water treatment chemicals. A power outage means that the pumps won't be able to fill the water towers to keep up water pressure. A supply interruption, due to civil unrest or extreme price instability, will mean that the quality of the water coming out of your tap will be suspect.

In Argentina after the economic collapse of 2001, the Buenos Aires water supply started to become less reliable. Tap water that used to be pure and clean suddenly developed black spots, odors and off colors. The citizens of the former wealthiest country in South America had to learn quickly how to deal with ensuring their health, which most did by beginning to depend on bottled water.

The terrible thing about the water supply is that we just assume that "they" (whoever they are) will always ensure that we are taken care of. What we don't realize is that "they" are just a handful of people running water treatment facilities that are super-automated and totally dependent on both the power grid and their judgment. We trust that "they" will do the right thing when systems break down and supplies are short, but the perilous times of economic upheaval we are facing will stress "them" just as it stresses everyone else. It's best not to have your life depend solely on these systems, but to also have a "Plan B."

Learning how to purify water as a city dweller, store extra water in case of an emergency, and knowing how to get the remaining drinkable water out of your system after the pressure shuts off are all things that are the top priority of any urban survival manual.

In addition to ensuring a "Plan B" for a water supply, there are many other urban survival techniques such as home defense, emergency power, food storage, etc. that need to be learned in order to be prepared for the next Great Depression. As the signs of the economic storm on the horizon become clearer and clearer, the time for preparations is growing short.