There is a phrase "The water just runs off his/her back." In this context, the image is of someone pouring water onto your back while you are fully clothed. Typically, your clothes would absorb a large amount of the water and not much would "flow" to the floor. It would be unusual for all of the water to simply flow to the ground and have none absorbed.
When using this phrase, "water" typically means "problems" or "difficult events or situations." So the phrase really means "Troubling events or situations seem to not bother him." Where "water" is a "metaphor" for troubling events. "The problems seem to "flow" directly away from the person without emotion being "absorbed"."