The most important thing you need to survive in cata is a water source
whiether this is a nearby town your can raid for toliets or a mosquito infested swamp that you make a mad dash to fill up a keg every few months
in ancient civilizations they solved the problem by digging irrigation ditches and water canals to make the water come to them instead of making you go to the water.
What if you dug a pit connected to a rivier and it filled with water?
You could dig a channel to your crop fields and the proximity to the water could make your crops go faster
You could make a well to get drinking water from
Make a moat to keep the baddies out at night
Or even just a decorative pond to add fueng sheu
if anything fell in youd have to pull the corpse out or risk it poisening your water supply, like when the walker fell into the well in the walking dead
I think it would be a great idea if you could dig water channels and it very visable that you could