The natural water cycle is the continuous movement of water on, above, and below Earth’s surface, powered primarily by evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.1 What is achieved by the natural water cycle is nothing short of miraculous : there is zero waste. Earth reuses the exact same amount of water with no new water added. This fixed amount of water constantly moves through the water cycle, so that even floods and droughts do not change the global water volume—water shifts between different global reservoirs like oceans, atmosphere, and land rather than being lost.2
Another phenomenal achievement of the water cycle is natural filtration. As water moves through soil and rock, it is cleaned and filtered for multiple ecosystems. The PiMag Waterfall® seeks to mimic nature’s natural filtration system: there is no need for electricity or plumbing, relying instead on magnetic technology and gravity. Copper ions and mineral stones are incorporated into the filtration process, helping to enhance the water while contributing to a balanced pH for refreshing hydration.
Here are the key stages of nature’s water cycle3 and how they work:
- Evaporation: The sun heats water in oceans, lakes, and rivers, turning liquid water into gas (water vapor) that rises.
- Transpiration: Plants release water vapor from their leaves into the air.
- Condensation: Rising water vapor cools down and changes back into tiny liquid droplets, forming clouds.
- Precipitation: Water falls from heavy clouds back to Earth as rain, snow, or hail.
- Collection & Runoff: Water gathers in rivers, lakes, and oceans, or soaks into the ground to restart the loop.
The natural water cycle helps achieve the interconnected balance between the sky, land and the sea. Solar energy and gravity link them together to create natural synergy. The water cycle revolves around pools and fluxes. Pools are where and how water is stored and fluxes refer to the movement of the water between different pools.4
• Water is stored in pools in the form of liquid water, ice, snow and water vapor, which means water lives in the atmosphere, at the surface and underground.
• Salt water makes up 97.5 percent of Earth’s water, mostly in oceans, while freshwater makes up only 2.5 percent, primarily in lakes and rivers, but also in glaciers, and permanent snow. Water that is below ground is known as groundwater and accounts for about 30 percent of freshwater.5
• Water moves between pools in various ways:6
+Liquid water evaporates into water vapor, is transported through the atmosphere, condenses to form clouds, and returns to the surface as precipitation like rain or snow.
+Water can flow across the land, down into the ground, then be taken up by plants, and back into the atmosphere.
+Water can even return to the atmosphere from solid ice or snow, skipping the liquid phase.
Humans disrupt the natural flow of water in many ways, such as changing where and how much water is stored through building dams, changing the path of rivers, and other actions. In a recently published paper, NASA scientists used nearly 20 years of observations to show that the global water cycle is shifting in unprecedented ways. The majority of those shifts are driven by activities such as agriculture and could have impacts on ecosystems and water management.7
Humans are learning to respect the water cycle and its natural reuse and conservation of water resources. In reality, learning to emulate aspects of the natural water cycle is crucial to adapting to water-related climate patterns, predicting flood, drought and changes to sea levels and glacial movements. Learning from nature, not only about the water cycle, is proving to be increasingly important to human societies and livelihoods.
1, 3, 5, 6 https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/freshwater/water-cycle
4 https://www.australianenvironmentaleducation.com.au/education-resources/the-natural-water-cycle/
7 https://www.nasa.gov/earth/nasa-scientists-find-new-human-caused-shifts-in-global-water-cycle/