Ponds Information

A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens, water features and koi ponds; all designed for aesthetic ornamentation as landscape or architectural features, while fish ponds are designed for commercial fish breeding, and solar ponds designed to store thermal energy.

Standing bodies of water such as puddles, ponds and lakes are distinguished from a water course, such as a brook, creek or stream via current speed. While currents in streams are more easily observed, ponds and lakes possess thermally driven microcurrents and moderate wind driven currents. These features distinguish a pond from many other aquatic terrain features, such as stream pools and tide pools.

Some mills use the kinetic energy of the moving water in the pond to generate electricity.

Technical definitions

The technical distinction between a pond and a lake has not been universally standardized. Limnologists and freshwater biologists have proposed formal definitions for pond, in part to include 'bodies of water where light penetrates to the bottom of the waterbody,' 'bodies of water shallow enough for rooted water plants to grow throughout,' and 'bodies of water which lack wave action on the shoreline.' Each of these definitions have met with resistance or disapproval, as the defining characteristics are each difficult to measure or verify. Accordingly, some organizations and researchers have settled on technical definitions of pond and lake which rely on size alone.^[1]

Even among organizations and researchers who distinguish lakes from ponds by size alone, there is no universally recognised standard for the maximum size of a pond. The international Ramsar wetland convention sets the upper limit for pond size as 8 hectares (19.768 acres),^[2] but biologists have not universally adopted this convention. Researchers for the British charity Pond Conservation have defined a pond to be 'a man-made or natural waterbody which is between 1 m² and 20,000 m² in area (~2 ha or ~5 acres), which holds water for four months of the year or more.'^[3] Other European biologists have set the upper size limit at 5 ha (12.355 acres).^[4] In North America, even larger bodies of water have been called ponds; for example, Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts measures 61 acres (~25 ha).

Formation

Ponds can result from a wide range of natural processes, although in many parts of the world these are now severely constrained by human activity. Any depression in the ground which collects and retains a sufficient amount of precipitation can be considered a pond, and such depressions can be formed by a variety of geological and ecological events.

Nomenclature

In origin, pond is a variant form of the word pound, meaning a confining enclosure.^[5] As straying cattle are enclosed in a pound so water is enclosed in a pond. In earlier times, ponds were man-made and utilitarian; as stew ponds, mill ponds and so on. The significance of this feature seems, in some cases, to have been lost when the word was carried abroad with emigrants. In the United States, natural pools are often called ponds.

A pond is sometimes characterized as being a small body of water that is shallow enough for sunlight to reach the bottom, permitting the growth of rooted plants at its deepest point.^[6]

Pond usually implies a quite small body of water, generally smaller than one would require a boat to cross. Another definition is that a pond is a body of water where even its deepest areas are reached by sunlight or where a human can walk across the entire body of water without being submerged. In some dialects of English, pond normally refers to small artificially created bodies of water.

Some regions of the United States define a pond as a body of water with a surface area of less than 10 acres (40,000 m²).^{[citation needed]}

Regional differences include the use of the word pond in New England, and Maine in particular, for relatively large water bodies. For example a Great Pond in Maine is considered to be at least 10 acres (41,240 m²) in area.^[7]

In areas which were covered by glaciers in the past, some ponds were created when the glaciers retreated. These ponds are known as kettle ponds. Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, is a well known example. Kettle ponds are usually quite deep and clean because they are fed by underground aquifers rather than surface streams.

The term is also used for temporary accumulation of water from surface runoff (ponded water).

There are various regional names for naturally occurring ponds. In Scotland, one of the terms is lochan, which may also apply to a large body of water such as a lake.

The word "pond" is sometimes also used to refer to the Atlantic Ocean in the expression "across the pond", and the expression "big pond" similarly is sometimes used for the Pacific. These uses are deliberate idiomatic understatements.

Ponds' calm waters are ideal for insects and other water dwelling invertebrates. This includes the pondskater, the water boatman, the diving beetle, the whirligig beetle and the water scorpion.

Characteristics

Some ponds have no surface outflow draining off water and ponds are often spring-fed. Hence, because of the closed environment of ponds, such small bodies of water normally develop self contained ecosystems.

Uses

In the Indian subcontinent, Hindu temples usually have a pond nearby so that pilgrims can take baths. These ponds are considered sacred. In medieval times in Europe, it was typical for many monastery and castles (small, partly self-sufficient communities) to have fish ponds. These are still common in Europe and in East Asia (notably Japan), where koi may be kept.

Another use is in agriculture. In agriculture, treatment ponds combined with irrigation reservoirs are used as a self-purifying irrigation reservoir to allow irrigation at times of drought.

Tobha is Punjabi name for village pond. Every village in Punjab (India) essentially has a pond, into which the drainage of village is forced. Buffalos and other village animals take bath in village pond during summers. Tobha is really an object of entertainment for village people, where children also learn to swim and play.

The small pond in (bog) or mountain is called "池塘" (chitō^?) in [Japan] and is discriminate from the pond in the plain and widely recognized by mountaineers.

Examples

Thousands of examples worldwide are available to illustrate the pond; a few of these are:

• Antonelli Pond, California, USA
• Big Pond, Nova Scotia
• Bullough's Pond, Massachusetts, USA
• Christian Pond, Wyoming, USA
• Hampstead Ponds, England
• Milicz Ponds, Poland
• Oguni-numa Pond, Japan
• Pete's Pond, Botswana
• Rožmberk Pond, Czech Republic

See also

• Cooling pond
• Duck pond
• Fountain
• Lentic ecosystems
• Pond aeration
• Solar pond
• Stormwater management pond
• Tarn (lake)
• Treatment pond
• Waste pond
• Water aeration
• Water garden

References

1. ^ Biggs J., Williams P., Whitfield M., Nicolet P. and Weatherby, A. (2005). 15 years of pond assessment in Britain: results and lessons learned from the work of Pond Conservation. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 15: 693-714.
2. ^ Ramsar.org
3. ^ Biggs J., Williams P., Whitfield M., Nicolet P. and Weatherby, A. (2005). 15 years of pond assessment in Britain: results and lessons learned from the work of Pond Conservation. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 15: 693-714.
4. ^ Céréghino, R., J. Biggs, B. Oertli, and S. Declerck. 2008. The ecology of European ponds: Defining the characteristics of a neglected freshwater habitat. Hydrobiologia 597:1-6.
5. ^ Oxford English Dictionary
6. ^ But mere may be thought a better term for this.
7. ^ Mainelegislature.org

Further reading

• W.H. MacKenzie and J.R. Moran (2004). "Wetlands of British Columbia: A Guide to Identification. Ministry of Forests, Land Management Handbook 52.

Categories: Wetlands | Bodies of water | Fluvial landforms | Habitats

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See Also:

• Lakes and Ponds
• Pond
• Pond Terrain
• Science: Environment: Water Resources: Lakes and Ponds
• Science: Environment: Water Resources: Lakes and Ponds: Products and Services