We as a species require a few essential things to survive. First of all, we need clean, breathable air. This isn’t necessarily a problem. Not yet, anyway. Though we’ve had to heavily regulate factories in order to make sure that this isn’t a problem, most of us don’t around all day with scarves tied to our faces. Air quality in several major American cities has actually improved over the past couple decades thanks to several majors implanted by the federal and municipal governments. But air isn’t all we need, of course. We also need food which, for better or for worse, has shaped much of our national and international infrastructure. We are all doing all right on this front but not great. The human diet is enormous and involves a lot of different kinds of sustenance so we use a lot of our land farming, growing and raising all different kinds of food. There are sustainable ways to do this but, again, for better or for worse, we don’t always live up to the standard we should be setting for ourselves. There’s also the issue of the types of food we consume which aren’t always the best. But, through the effort of many individuals and large networks of support groups, we are at least making our way forward. So what is the last thing that we as humans need? Baseline need, at least. You guessed it. Clean water, in all forms and varieties. But it hasn’t been an easy road to getting this, either. Read on and find out.

Clean water, water filtration systems, water treatment process and the building of the modern day world
There hasn’t always been home water treatment, in home water purification systems or the reverse osmosis water softener to help us keep our water safe. For most of human history, our water was whatever the stream or river dictated that it was. Let’s take a look at a small village in medieval China to illustrate just what this means exactly. It seems like a bit of a random time and place to jump to but bear with me. It will all make sense in time. So what was life like back then, in terms of quality and health? Well, different than ours, that’s for sure. In essence, it required a lot more chance than it does now. The people who lived in small villages like this would live on a lot more chances that they would have to take with both their water and their food. For their food, it meant hoping that their animals and their crops would stay free of disease. Ancient China, like much of the ancient world, had their own ways of dealing with pests and diseases, some of which worked, many of which didn’t. But it was all they had and they needed to keep their food safe somehow. But what about their water?
Enter the water filtration systems
For most of this history, in this village and all the others, towns and buildings would be built all along the sides of a large creek or river. This wasn’t just for transportation either. It was an absolute necessity for survival. There was simply no other way to get water except to dig for it which was possible but not always reliable. So, over time, they needed to develop ways to keep this water safe and drinkable. In ancient China and other ancient civilizations, they had different methods for water filtration systems, again, some of which worked, some of which didn’t. They would put chemicals or charms in the water to keep it from being contaminated. If it was contaminated, they’d blame the water filtration systems themselves or people for tampering with them. Sometimes, unjustly, people would be executed or tortured for their crimes. It wasn’t right but it was the justice they had. Hence the many witch trails and other witch hunts these ancient peoples would have. But, slowly, we would all work together to develop the modern world and modern methods of water filtration to keep our drinking water safe. Ones that would sincerely keep us healthy and functioning all day.