Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How best to increase watershed?

My pond was built a bit smaller than planned, and so was the watershed. Not that I'm complaining too much, it holds water well and is only two feet low at summer minimum, but would like more water.

Just Below the pond, but still on my pine tree property, is a low area that catches maybe one third the runoff I get already.

Two questions. First, how best could I divert that watershed to my pond without tearing up too many pine trees? Second, would I risk too much water in the winter/spring wet period? I've only had one instance of water flowing over the emergency spillway, right after a five inch downpour in the winter, but don't want too many more episodes.

Currently have a 9 3/8 inch standpipe, water flows through it maybe half the year.

Maybe I should address this question to bulldozer/pond construction guys. I've heard of terraces meant to channel water but don't know if this would be feasible in my location.

I've been looking at the same thing. Increasing my watershed because my neighbor above me liked my pond so much he built one, and that reduced my watershed. He did offer to have his overflow run into my place but at the time I was raising CB lmb, Texas Lonestar legacy lmb and I did not want what he had. I've been looking at field tiles but I don't want the excess nutrients that might come with using field tiles. I'm still trying to figure it all out

Tracy I don't think the field tiles would give you any more nutrients than surface runoff if the surface was an ag field. I'm no agronomist but I would say less nutrients. The most likely from field tile would be nitrogen. Phosphorus is mostly not water soulable. What phos is water soluable you are a lot more likely to get it from the surface (via soil particles also) than tile.

Don't know if my thinking is correct or not, but I would think if a person is going to get nutrients one way or another, more nitrogen and less phos would be desirable. Plus no corn leaves or shucks or other surface trash.

There is a terrace in agriculture called a paralell terrace. It utilizes underground plastic tile line to deliver water from low elevations in an upper terrace channel to the next lower terrace.

You might be able to use the same technology by capturing the water you are now not getting with a terrace or small pond or dam at a higher elevation than your pond. Then underground piping could deliver the water to your pond.

In watershed districts where they want to control down stream flooding they utilize ponds with tall dams with the overflow pipe small diameter and set low in the dam (in other words the pond has excessive freeboard above the overflow). During large rain events the excess water is captured behind the dam then discharged slowly through the smallish overflow pipe. The pond temporarily holds lots of water but meters most of it out slowly. Lots of these ponds built in a large watershed helps prevent downstream flooding because the ponds deliver the water down stream more slowly than the water immediately running off.

Neither of the above ideas directly solves your problem. But either or both could have ideas towards solutions.

Capture water remotely. Let it meter slowly to your pond via smallish piping with trash guards in place to prevent pipe plugging. By sizing things properly (how much water the pond or terrace ultimately holds and the piping size to determine how fast the water is delivered) you could both control how much extra water the pond gets and how quickly it is delivered.

Thanks, guys. Tracy, I never really thought about the possibility of my neighbor building a pond that would reduce flow to mine!

John, you have some good ideas that I need to explore. Finding the right balance between cost, benefits, and risk will be tricky, but pretty sure some extra watershed would be helpful.

You mention pine trees.

My watershed is all East Texas timber. It absorbs rains like those we've had this week with no run off. Only when we get flash floods does most of the watershed become productive.

Pastures are much more productive watersheds.

Even pasture doesn't provide much runoff when its been as dry as it's been and flat as a pancake. 13 hours of slow steady rain today and I doubt my little puddle gained 1.5 inches.

Yep, flat terrain watershed absorbs a lot more than steep terrain. Most of mine is fairly steep, fortunately.

I'm thinking about creating an artificial stream bed running down the hill diagonally toward my BOW. Maybe dig 1 foot deep by 2 feet wide, put the excess dirt on other side of stream to make a bank. Don't know if it will work, but should be pretty easy & not too disruptive to the trees. Even a ten percent increase in watershed would be helpful.

If you get your grade right it will work well. Run the grade at least 2/10ths foot drop per 100 feet and if you want it to handle more water up to a foot drop in 100 feet. Get much steeper than that and you might have trouble with it eroding.

You might have to go steeper than that, depending on your terrain, and if you do and it becomes an erosion problem some rock lining can pretty well handle that.

Start where you want water to enter your pond and set the grade every 50 or hundred feet or so. Let the grade determine path of the ditch as much as possible. That is pretty much how a field terrace is laid out.

At least that is the way I would approach it. There may be better ways.

Thanks, John! Never done anything like this before.

The water for my LCS/YP/SMB pond almost all comes from field tiles and surface runoff from a neighbor's corn/soybean field. The surface water dumps into a very small settling pond first, but the field tile goes into the big pond direct. No issues so far. A lot depends on if the farmer is using modern techniques that reduce off-site issues. Using no-till enabled by herbicide-tolerant varieties has done wonders for wildlife across the country.

I screwed up when I built the pond, placing it to where it ran North to South. If I would have ran it East to West I would have more than enough watershed. There are several places where I could capture more water. The problem is the best place would need piping to run about a thousand feet from a major run off area. There are closer places to capture water but not even close to the first one mentioned. I even thought of building another one acre pond where it would capture more than enough and then tie it to the 3 acre pond.

snrub, building a terrace could work nicely but I am limited with only my tractor unless I rent some equipment. With just the tractor front end loader it would take a lot of time and work to get that terrace built.

Question? I have about 100' of 4" piping that has a lot of holes in each joint. What if I placed it in a ditch and then attached a 1 1/2" tubbing to that pipe and ran the smaller to an area where the water would flow naturally to the pond? What you think? I am thinking I need to use 4" all the way to the natural area but that raises the cost up quite a bit. But, laying the smaller tubing might reduce the water to where it's not worth the effort?

A laser level works great for laying out terraces/ditches and makes it a one man operation. The old fashion transit level works fine too but you need a second person to hold the grade stick.

You can use something like a laser level used inside like a house builder would use to lay tile or set window sills level. The thing of it is those lasers are very low power so the distance they operate is not great and they usually are not visible in bright sunlight. But there are ways to work around the shortcomings for a homeowner that happens to have one of these but does not have access to a outside construction grade laser level used for earth moving.

To get over the short distance limitation simply determine your grade every 25 or 50 feet. Set a flag and move the laser to the mid point of the flag just completed and where you think the next flag will go and re-level it (hopefully it is self leveling). Then repeat. Since you will not be able to see the laser in bright daylight will need to do this on a cloudy day or early evening in subdued light. Moving the laser every 25 feet and using a laser with lower accuracy is not perfect, but as long as a person is not trying to hold a very gradual grade it will work fine. It is a much slower process than a professional laser level that will go hundreds of feet and a person can lay out a whole terrace or multiple terraces without moving the laser.

But for a home owner that happens to have one of these household levels, it is kind of fun to mess with and have the satisfaction of laying out a ditch and having it drain properly. You can make a grade stick out of a piece of board with a yard stick attached.

You start with the laser near the pond and measure the height at the input point in the pond. Then move 25 feet up hill towards where you think the ditch will go and move the stick up and down the hill till you get a reading 2" lower on the stick (higher elevation). In this example 2" in 25 feet would be a grade of 8" per 100 feet. Then move your laser to mid point (or if you can see the laser 50' or more you might be able to set 2 or 3 flags, each time the measurement 2" lower on the stick) up the grade, level it and repeat till the whole ditch is done. You use the known height of the flag just done to determine the grade of the next flag.

Or just get a professional and he can do it in nothing flat. But there are ways to use modestly priced instruments if a person wants to take a little time and use his head. Heck you can do it with a 100' clear plastic hose filled with water and a ruler. You could do it with a carpenters level and a long straight board and ruler. It is not rocket science. You just have to think about what you are trying to accomplish. Also doing it yourself gives you time to play with different grades, work around obstructions, etc to end up with the ditch you want to do the job you want to do.

Used one of these for a barn pad about 20 years ago. It came out flat. Have used my carpenter laser level outside as well, but distances must be relatively short.

https://www.amazon.com/Mayes-Level-10309...1875&sr=8-1

Bought a used laser transit for laying out my newest pond and dam, and used it for the pad on the new barn as well. Glad to now have one!

By getting more water in dry times, you will be getting WAY more water in wet times. Having too much can cause as big a problems as too little. If you are only 2' low this summer with as little rain as we have received, I would think you are OK. A small terrace that you can divert water to and away would help and you still have control to some degree. I'm, building a gate in my terrace to divert excess water away, but it isn't how I want it yet.

I actually built a couple leaky wetland uphill of my new pond to catch the water and then leak into the pond. Kind of like settling ponds but perhaps more leaky. Pond is down less than a foot max so far this summer with a very small watershed and pretty dry conditions. Water is still "blue" with minerals. At least one of the species (FHM or LCS) has spawned. Only plant life is what I have planted (clay bottom). Can't find a source for water stargrass. Might want to consider a "wetland" near the bottom of your watershed diversion to hold water during flooding, that leaks slowly into your pond. One of my wetland has an emergency spillway that bypasses the pond if/when we ever get real bad flooding. The other wetland has its emergency spillway going into the other wetland with the bypass emergency spillway.

Brian I have seriously considered doing that with the terrace that collects water from the adjacent farm field. I actually have a small watershed for my pond size but we can still get a wet period where the pond is already full and ground saturated then get a gully washer and the main pond go over the emergency overflow. If I would install a pipe or culvert going through that terrace with either a valve on the outlet or just a cap on the inlet if conditions were already wet and heavy rains predicted I could just open up the pipe and let some or all of the water escape the terrace and not have to flow through the pond.

But "thinking about it" is as far as I have got.

I cut an 8' section out of my terrace with FEL then supported each side of the terrace with railroad ties. I have intended to build two gelatine style doors that open one or both to divert water away, but I'm still using cinder blocks....