Water & Quality | Water Calendar

The breath of water

Waterfall steps at Lärjedalen — Water cascading down a flight of waterfall steps. Segment of Storåsfallet, Lärjedalen, outside Gothenburg, Sweden.
Photo: Lasse Johansson

Breathtaking, the falling water rumbles down in front of me. At one place a metre or less, at another place cascading from so high above that I cannot estimate it. Moving with all its forms, and yet remaining firmly at the same place. Peaceful in all its turmoil.

What is it that makes it so majestic? Is it the murmuring splashing sound? Is it the slow motion movement, being pulled irresistibly towards the rim, and then falling, falling, falling, until the white foaming surface at the bottom comes to meet? Continue reading The breath of water

The dancing plumes

Dancing plumes from irrigation sprinkler — Plumes of water emerging from an irrigation sprinkler. Lärjedalen gardens, outside Gothenburg, Sweden.
Photo: Lasse Johansson

Swish, swish, swish, I have to run to escape the plumes of water cascading round and round over the small field. Innumerable water droplets journey together, upwards, upwards, then turning, falling, dissolving into a cloud of rain. Down below, the garden plants gratefully receive the life-giving water drops, capturing the droplets with their leaves. Some droplets continue, trickling down onto the bare umber soil underneath, wetting the soil and darkening it. Seeking its way into the hollows, seeping down, absorbed by the clayey, colloid substance that forms the fertile topsoil. Continue reading The dancing plumes

The healing water

Glittering water bottles — Water, a most mundane substance (or is it not?), here captured in bottles and glittering in the sun.
Photo: Lasse Johansson

The water flashes in the bottle, refracting the light from the sun. Veiled behind drops of condensation, a small pocket of air resides, between the surface of the water and the cap. Silvery, with a magical shimmer, water can sometimes look almost otherworldly. Like the healing elixir, brought to the companions of King Arthur, from the misty realms of Avalon.

The idea of some waters having a healing power can be traced back at least to ancient Greece. Equally old is the idea that hands-on healing (laying on of hands) may have a healing effect. In the 1960s, the Canadian biologist Bernard Grad (1920-2010) decided to investigate Continue reading The healing water

When water freezes

Distilled water ice image — Ice image of distilled water: A sparse and ordered structure surrounds the core. Photo: From the Gisela Ahlberg collection, Institute of Ecological Technology. (The photos have been slightly colorized.)

The temperature drops, water cools, and suddenly, there is a crest of ice on the surface, slowly growing and deepening. Soon it will be so hard that we can touch it without destroying it, and even walk on it. Anyone who has been skating on a lake will know that there is ice and there is ice. Sometimes clear, sometimes so filled with air bubbles as to be almost completely opaque.

The Swedish water investigator Gisela Ahlberg decided to explore this, and devised a method, together with her colleague Christina Weldero, to study natural waters by ice images. Continue reading When water freezes

The quality of water

Leaves resting on amber-coloured pond — Birch tree leaves resting on the surface of a small amber-coloured pond that has formed after the rain. Photo: Lasse Johansson

In the autumn, leaves fall onto the ground, into the small ponds forming here and there, soon with brownish amber-coloured water. Resting for a moment on the surface, until a splash or a footstep causes it to cross the surface and sink towards the bottom, contributing to the forming colour.

As the leaves break down, the oxygen in the water is consumed, and the humus acids tint the pond. The water in the lower layers becomes reductive, oxygen deficit. Slowly the water sinks down, and enters the groundwater cycle.

What could these two things, the resting leaf and the amber-coloured water tell us about water quality? Continue reading The quality of water

Water’s pulse

“Malmö” model flowforms in Warmonderhof, the Netherlands. Photo: Hans van Sluis

Swish, swoosh, swish, swoosh, in a rhythmic pattern, the water swings to and fro in the vessel, a “flowform”, originally conceived by the British anthroposophist John Wilkes (1930-2011) in 1970 and since then developed into many shapes.

The incoming water flow, and the curved heart-shaped walls create the right conditions for a rhythmic flow to spontaneously emerge, to self-organize – a cooperative behaviour, which springs out naturally, effortlessly, from the conditions. The water molecules dance together. From vessel to vessel the dance continues, until the water reaches the pond below. Standing by the stair of flowforms, listening to the pulsating sound, it is as if it radiates tranquillity – a wild brook carved in stone. Continue reading Water’s pulse

The water vortex

Water vortex in bucket — Water swirling in a bucket, with reflections of the sky in the water surface. A leaf is going with the flow.
Photo: Lasse Johansson

Round and round, the vortex swirls in the bucket, mixing whatever is in it. Perhaps one of our most mundane acquaintances with water is stirring it, although we seldom give the process a closer look. Stirring vigorously will only create a blur. But the moment we leave water on its own for a while, the curved spiralling shapes appear and stabilize. The vortex funnel has chosen its preferred form.

Does water mind how we stir it? Will it behave differently afterwards depending on our movements? Looking at water merely as a dead substance, we tend to relegate such questions to the fairy tales. But even a fairy tale can turn out to be true. And in this case – just as a good fairytale should – it is about a land down under. Continue reading The water vortex

Water and consciouness

Curved space - vortex funnel and ripples — “Curved space”, 1991. Ripples and funnel forming in a very gentle vortex flow in a large egg-shaped container.
Photo & design: Dag Birkeland

As if they were carved out, the ripples in the water hover before my eyes. The gentle vortex flow pulls the water down, only to return it to the surface again, following the walls of the egg-shaped container. Round and round, the water seems to form a complete universe of its own. It is unavoidable to be affected by the stillness.

Clearly, water can affect our thoughts. But can our thoughts affect water? Could, for example, our consciousness change a property or structure in a water sample? And could such a change in water be observed? This the Russian scientists Lev Pyatnitsky and V. Fonkin asked themselves. Continue reading Water and consciouness