It is often used to look for water, and farmers in California have been known to ask dowsers to find ways to irrigate their land. Yet despite many anecdotal reports of success, dowsing has never been shown to work in controlled scientific tests.

Do divining rods really find water?

Hi @sallylepage, yes on occasions we use divining or dowsing rods to locate water mains however they are not accurate 100% of the time. There is no evidence that divining, which relies on the spontaneous twitching of sticks held in human hands, can accurately detect anything beneath the ground.

Do water companies use dowsing?

It turns out that water companies have been using dowsing to find damaged pipes, and this is an extremely common practice.