Civilization101Blueprint

Water & Sanitation

Water kills first and fastest. Plan on 15 litres per person per day; clarify it, then boil, sun or chlorinate it before anyone drinks; and put the latrine at least 30 m from the water, downhill and downstream. The sector climbs from a scoop hole and a boiling pot to a city main kept under pressure, and every level keeps faeces out of the water that people drink.
5 steps + 1 cross-listed 11 field guides 2 builds 3 reference sheets 37 books and archives

Tracks

Each track is one line of development climbing the eight levels. A cell holds the step written at that level; cross-listed steps have their home in another sector and are shown here because this subject depends on them. Dashed cells are planned and not yet written; blank ones have nothing planned.

Find and store water

From a scoop hole to a protected, shared supply: where the water is, how much you need, and keeping it clean between the source and the mouth.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
t0-water-find Find and hold water Guide ×3BuildSheet ×2 5 options by what you have →
t1-commonworks The first public good Guide ×2Sheet Home: Society
Level 2: nothing planned
Level 3: nothing planned
Level 4: nothing planned
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Make water safe

Clarify, then disinfect: boiling, sunlight, chlorine and slow sand, up to a treatment works that measures what it does.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
t0-water-safe Make water safe Guide ×5BuildSheet ×2 4 options by what you have →
Level 1: nothing planned
Level 2: nothing planned
t3-chlorine Make chlorine disinfectant Guide ×2Sheet
t4-sanitation City water and sewerage Guide ×2 Home: Water
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Sanitation

Keep faeces away from water and hands: the pit latrine and the handwashing station, then sewers that clean themselves and treatment instead of relocation.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
t0-latrine Separate waste from water Guide ×5BuildSheet
Level 1: nothing planned
Level 2: nothing planned
Level 3: nothing planned
t4-sanitation City water and sewerage Guide ×2
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Everything in Water & Sanitation

Gathered from the steps above: the guides and builds that serve them, the reference sheets those carry, and every book the steps, guides and builds cite.

Field guides

Level 0
Wild water and wells

Surface water is a treatment problem every single day. Groundwater, reached and sealed properly, is a treatment problem once.

 Level 3
Earth sciences

Water in and on the ground, the air and weather, rocks and time, earthquakes and tsunamis, and the climate: each result with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 0
Drinking water

The thing that kills first, and the one problem on this site that is completely solved — provided you do it every single day, including the day everyone is exhausted.

 Level 0
Institutions: what to found, and how to run them

Every public institution an advanced civilisation runs, in the order a rebuilding one can found them: what each is for, when it becomes possible, and the rules that keep it honest, useful and no bigger than its job.

 Level 0
Fire

Making fire once is a trick. Never having to make it from nothing again is the skill, and the difference between them is tinder you collected yesterday.

 Level 3
Micro-organisms

The two dozen that decide who lives where there is no doctor: what each does, how it spreads, what kills it and which step stops it.

 Level 1
Poisons

The poisonings a rebuilding community is most likely to meet: where each comes from, how it shows, and the first thing to do.

 Level 5
The electromagnetic spectrum

Radio, heat, light, ultraviolet and X-rays are one thing at different wavelengths: what each band does, and the radio bands by name.

 Level 3
Chemistry

What matter is made of and how it changes: amounts, gases, acids, the energy and speed of reactions, electrochemistry, and the reactions every industry on the ladder runs on.

 Level 0
Sanitation and disease

The distance between a latrine and a well, a bar of soap, and a covered pit prevent more deaths than every hospital on the ladder combined.

 Level 3
Essential medicines

The basic set from the WHO list: what each treats, what it is made from, and the earliest tier that can make it. No doses, on purpose.

Builds

A column showing the media profile — fine sand on top, graded gravel supporting it below.
Level 1
Slow sand filter

Clean drinking water with no chemicals, no power and no moving parts — the highest lives-saved-per-effort structure on this site.
Inside a sawdust latrine — seat, chute, and the bin of cover material that makes the system work.
Level 1
Twin-vault composting latrine

Break the faecal–oral route and return the nutrients — the highest lives-saved-per-effort structure a settlement can build.

Reference sheets

Drawn overview sheets, each with its corrections printed under it. They orient; they are never the thing you identify from.

A lever hand pump in section — pump head, rod, piston and its valve, rising main and foot valve — with the parts, the stroke cycle, installation, maintenance and design notes.
Hand pump On: The first public good · Wild water and wells: Lifting the water
Choosing a source, the anatomy of a slow-sand filter bed by bed, the build sequence, the four mechanisms that actually clean the water, its operation and — the panel that matters most — what it does not remove.
Safe water — slow-sand filtration On: Make water safe · Drinking water: Slow sand: the only method that scales
The principle and a worked example (an echo after 10 µs means 1.5 km), the four measurements (range, bearing, speed, size), how aircraft, drones, birds, rain, ships, vehicles, terrain and trees reflect, four kinds of radar, a Raspberry Pi build around a 24 or 10.5 GHz Doppler module, an example screen, uses, ways to improve range, and limits and safety.
Radar: what it detects, and a simple Doppler build On: The electromagnetic spectrum: Radio bands

Books and archives

Next sector →Food & Agriculture