Resource rationing is the emergency practice of counting limited supplies, estimating daily need, and dividing food, water, fuel, medicine, light, containers, and labor so a group can survive long enough to resupply, move, treat water, acquire food, or stabilize the situation. In A0 this is not an accounting exercise. It is a life-support decision made under stress, with incomplete information, uneven training, and supplies that may be lost, spoiled, stolen, contaminated, or discovered later.
This folder belongs in A0 because rationing starts the moment a group realizes that normal supply has failed. A household after a flood, a shelter after a storm, a stranded vehicle group, a field camp, or a small community cut off from transport all need the same first questions: how many people are here, what is safe to consume, how much is on hand, what is the daily need, how long will it last, and what actions can change the answer.
Resource duration is a division problem:
days = total usable supply / (number of people x daily ration per person)
For water, the supply must be safe water or water that can actually be made safe with available containers, filters, disinfectant, heat, and time. For food, the supply should be counted by calories when labels, ration packs, or known staple weights make that possible. Counting cans or boxes can mislead a group because a can of vegetables and a can of peanut butter do not represent the same survival value.
The calculation should be repeated every day at the same time. People arrive or leave. Containers leak. Food spoils. Someone may become sick. Weather may turn hot or cold. Firewood, cooking fuel, or water-treatment chemicals may become the limiting resource even when food appears adequate.
Water is usually the fastest rationing constraint. CDC household emergency guidance recommends storing at least one gallon of water per person per day for three days, and trying for a two-week supply if possible. Humanitarian field standards often plan at higher service levels because water is also needed for cooking, hygiene, cleaning, sanitation, and health protection.
Separate water into three categories:
Do not mix these categories in the count. A group with twenty gallons of safe water and eighty gallons of chemically contaminated floodwater does not have one hundred gallons of drinking water.
Food rationing should start with calories because calories determine how long people can work, stay warm, think clearly, and recover. A common humanitarian planning figure for a fully food-aid-dependent population is about 2,100 kilocalories per person per day. That is a population planning baseline, not a perfect value for every person. Cold exposure, heavy labor, pregnancy, childhood, illness, injury, malnutrition, and body size all change the situation.
Calories are not the only issue. Over longer periods, fat, protein, salt, micronutrients, infant feeding needs, and food preparation all matter. A food stockpile that looks large but requires water and fuel to cook can fail if water or fuel runs short. Dry grains, beans, rice, pasta, flour, powdered milk, and dehydrated foods should be counted together with the water and cooking method needed to make them usable.
Rationing needs a visible rule. Hidden rationing creates suspicion and wastes attention. A simple board or notebook should show:
Equal division is not always fair division. A child, injured person, heavy laborer collecting water, or nursing mother may need a different allocation. But unequal allocation must be named, recorded, and tied to survival need, not status.
If the calculation says that supplies will not last, the answer is not simply to reduce portions until the spreadsheet looks acceptable. A dangerously low ration means the group must change the situation:
Rationing is a bridge to action, not a substitute for action.
infopreserver_resource_rationing_worksheet.pdf - one-page InfoPreserver worksheet with water, food, people, and days formulas.us_army_fm_21_76_survival_manual_1957.pdf - public-domain U.S. Army survival manual with water, food, exposure, and field survival guidance.dod_fm_21_76_1_survival_evasion_recovery_1999.pdf - U.S. military survival, evasion, and recovery reference with field survival and resource-use guidance.fda_food_and_water_safety_power_outages_floods_2015.pdf - U.S. government guidance on food and water safety after power outages and floods.gao_international_food_assistance_emergency_ration_report_2011.pdf - U.S. Government Accountability Office report on emergency food assistance, ration composition, quality control, and the 2,100 kilocalorie planning baseline.sphere_handbook_2018_humanitarian_standards.pdf - Sphere humanitarian minimum standards handbook covering water supply, sanitation, food security, nutrition, shelter, and distribution standards.unhcr_wash_manual_8th_edition_2026.pdf - UNHCR WASH manual with practical water, sanitation, hygiene, monitoring, and service-level guidance for refugee and emergency settings.Some high-value standards were usable as public web references but were blocked from command-line PDF download by their hosting sites. They are still important for the page:
10_A0_Survival_Baseline/Core_Survival/Resource_Rationing