Hidden Nature

Ultimately becoming a broad river, the increasing silt content

makes the water flow more sluggishly and become more opaque.

This, however, protects the lower strata from the heat of the Sun.

They remain cooler, retaining the spiral, vortical motion which is

able to shift sediment of larger grain-size (pebbles, gravel, etc.)

from the centre of the watercourse, and keep down the risk of

flooding. This motion also discourages the generation of harmful

bacteria and the water remains disease-free.

Viktor Schauberger wrote in 1933 in his book, Our Senseless Toil,

how he was able to put to practical use his discoveries about water:

It is possible to regulate watercourses over any given distance

without embankment works; to transport timber and other

materials, even when heavier than water, for example ore,

stones, etc., down the centre of such watercourses; to raise the

height of the water table in the surrounding countryside and

to endow the water with all those elements necessary for the

prevailing vegetation.^6

The temperature gradient

One of Viktor Schauberger's most important discoveries was to do

with temperature. He showed how small variations of temperature

are as crucial to the healthy movement of water and sap as they are

for the human blood. He clarified this by identifying temperature

change in its relationship to the anomaly point of water +4°C

(39.2°F). When the temperature departs from this anomaly point,

either up or down, it is said to have a negative gradient. When it

approaches the anomaly point, from either direction, or when the

groundwater is colder than the air temperature, it has a positive gra-

dient. Heat always moves towards cold.

In the natural process of synthesis and decomposition in all

waters, trees and other living organisms, both the rising and falling

temperature gradients are active. Each form of gradient has its spe-

cial function in Nature's great production; the positive (cooling)

temperature gradient must play the principal role if evolution is to

unfold creatively.

This important factor affects all the features of a river, such as flow

velocity, tractive force (shear force), sediment load, turbidity, and vis-

cosity, and everything to do with water management generally, like its

HIDDEN NATURE