I am looking at purchasing around 10-20 acres in NE Texas with plans to put in a 1 acre pond. All else being equal, which type of topography is better suited....relatively flat terrain with sufficient watershed for an excavated pond or a sloping topography with a seasonal creek that can be dammed?

I'm curious as to which terrain would be more expensive for pond construction? I will essentially select the piece of land that will be best suited for a pond. I plan to use the NRCS web soil survey to try and select a location with enough clay so I don't end up having to truk in clay or use a liner.

Also, how much watershed is suggested for a 1 acre pond 12-14ft deep? Any suggestions for selecting property best suited are appreciated.

Thanks

Pit ponds require significantly more earth removal increasing costs.

Damming a draw requires a core trench which is an added expense but typically less dirt removal than a pit pond.

A draw already demonstrates it's receiving significant water from surrounding watershed during rain events which is a plus, and I personally prefer land with some varied topography/timber.

Watershed size depends on your annual precipitation. In SE NE our formula is 33 acre watershed for every acre of pond based on 29" annual precipitation.

Hope some of this helps.

Relatively flat terrain seldom gets enough run off to fill a 1 acre pond. One consideration might be that all of the runoff area is under your control. A neighbors land usage changes can effect available run off to you. It happened to me. Flat land might be good for farming but doesn't work well for water impoundment.

Speaking of neighbors, take a close look at the neighbors before you buy. Several years ago, I saw a piece of property that I considered as an investment. However, when I looked at the area I found what reminded me of the movie Deliverance. I passed and the property, quite a few years later, is still for sale.

I'm very interested in this topic right now as I am in the process of buying the family farm. it has a small drainage ditch running through the property which has only been dry a hand full of times in my life time. My problem with it is the amount of water shed that drains here. It would be in the hundreds of acres. My main question is how much is to much water flow. How do others deal with high flow water sheds. The water in the worst of times would raise a 1.5 acre pond 2-4' during a 2-4" rain. The 2-4' would then slowly drop over the course of 24-48 hours. If I can handle the up and down swings is my only real problem the amount of fish that would get washed down stream?

I think the best of both worlds is a combination of excavated pond and dammed pond, in a very gentle draw or terrain that slopes about 3 feet in a hundred or so feet. With our clay soils and good runoff I think our ratio of watershed to pond is around 6:1 to 10:1. It all depends on rainfall and soils. We tend to get a lot of hard, short lasting thunderstorm rains in normal years that don't soak in much.

In my perspectives, if you want land for future projects that involve water harvesting and maintenance such as pond/lake, I assist my friends in doing:

1. Evaluation of both largest known historical precipitation events (flood) and annual precipitation (yearly that provide adequate water harvesting) above the drought threshold level (which is cycle every 15 to 75 years). If there's an active spring to feed water onto your property, a massive plus. Know where the spring source is coming from, and how long the spring has been there.

2. Topography to evaluate water collection within a watershed, utilizing a retention basin technique for desilting/nutrient trapping, before introducing captured water usages. Never purchase flatland unless you have a historical abundant source of water.

3. Know your groundwater depth, water rights volume allotment, and hydrological connection to the local water body(-ies) and tributaries. You can pond your water, but if your water discharge to the local water of the U.S. or directly impact groundwater, you may get a nice letter from the Dept. of Natural Resources/Fish & Wildlife that may lead you to prison.

4. Now, adding to topography, soil types. For water harvesting, you want to minimize water loss. Can't have soil that drains quickly. This is also important to utilize plants as natural filtering and nutrient reducers, unless you have plenty of money to control the nutrient issues yourself.

5. This may not be important, but off-grid pond/lake management, we like to have an area where wind can also be harvested for both power generation and passive aeration, inducing dissolved oxygen into the water.

Well said Leo.

In NE Texas you will have enough rain events to fill, and enough drought to worry about it getting too low.

For 1 acre I don't think you will have much issue other than making sure you have the right soil. Dig deep(14-15') and steep(3:1), so as the pond looses water to evaporation, your surface area doesn't change too much. You can always build a terrace to divert water, and if you do, put a couple of gate in it so you can adjust the amount of water flow.

As far as cost, you will pay for the yards of dirt moved. Flat ground will require the most yards moved. Building on a slope will reduce the amount of dirt to be dug, and enclosing a draw or valley can be the cheapest, but then you may have to worry about too much water.

Too much water is not a problem, if you create a sizable control outlet, or better, a few. It's always better to have too much water than too little. With the too much water issue, you can actually create a subset shrimp pond, or, my fav, poor man's lobster farm.

Maybe you could build adjacent to, instead of including the drainage ditch. In other words capture only a portion of the watershed area.

Here is an old thread that used some innovation to control water flow into his pond and divert excess flow.

Too much green

That thread never got a lot of discussion so did not stay around long, but I always though the poster did a great job of showing pictures and documenting the steps he went through to improve his main BOW. He put a lot of thought into water flow control. It was one of several specialty ponds threads that led me to create both my forage and sediment ponds.

Thanks for the comments and links to other treads guys.

Part of my plan would be to include 2 other ponds for sediment control and forage raising areas. I also know that with the current pipe sizes that support the small ditch I can control the amount of water that flows through the ditch. I was mainly concerned with the shear volume washing away my fish in the larger spring snow melts and 4" rains.

I could build off to the sides of the ditch but this would require a lot more digging and dirt movement as a opposed to a small amount of dirt work and dam building.