Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Info for runoff into pond

I talked to the lady that i bought this lil farm from last september and it has a nice lil pond on it ( about 1/2 acre or so ) But my concern was the water level and i found out that it relies completely on the runoff from the pasture on 3 of the 4 sides of it. has a nice slope to it.I'll have pics tomorrow , need someone to tell me if i need to invest in another water supply for it.

Hi Dewayne,

I'm no expert by any means but I'll give it a shot. Adding a water supply may depend on what type of soil is in the pond and if it seeps or leaks, also how much evaporation loss is in your area. If you are losing more water to seepage and evaporation than average rainfall then addition water supply may be needed.This may be something to monitor if the pond is already full with it being the summer and all.

That my take, someone probably has more info

Dewayne, use a topo map (if you post it here, we'll help) or educated Mark I eyeball to determine how many acres of watershed drain into the pond. Then let us know, along with whether or not any of the water comes from other than pasture land (i.e. 15 acres of pasture, 2 acres of woods, etc.).

Based on your local average rainfall (AND how regular it tends to be) and evaporation rates, whether the watershed is sufficient to support the pond can be advised. The egghead types can do it all from formulas, and your friendly neighborhood PMs can do it by the seat of their pants.

Based on internal informal survey, I'd say most ponds don't use supplemental water. But the farther West and South you go, the more ponds are supplemented by wells; I'm living in a generally very well-watered part of the country, so I tend to look at things through moist eyeballs.

Both my ponds rely on runoff from rain for water. My first one was almost a comedy of errors in where I located it, but over time, I've been able to move some dirt around to really increase the amount of runoff it received. I went from about two inches of water increase for every inch of rain to over four times that amount. Now it's become a very nice pond that we really enjoy. My big pond was supposed to receive allot of runoff too, but I didn't realize how much water the trees soak up. I'm clearing some of my land and rerouting drainage to my lake, but with allot of acerage to catch water, I'm not getting what I thought I should.

Something I like to do is walk my land after a hard rain. Then I can see what the water is doing and where it's going. I've discovered a few areas that I needed to address and have figured out how to catch another five to seven acres with a few modifications to my roads and culverts.

Take a good look at the land around your pond and figure out if you are catching all the water you can when it rains. Then start thinking of what you might be able to do to catch more. Sometimes just taking out a little mound of dirt will give you acres of surface area to pull water from!!!

Eddie