Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Shallow Waterfowl Habitat

I have an old dairy farm that is seasonally flooded. The soil is very porous. Parts of it are on higher ground and less subject to river flow heights. I would like to put in some shallow ponds for waterfowl on those high points. I'm thinking water depth of 10-18" only. I may have access to clay because I'm decommissioning a couple of manure ponds. but also, may need a liner. My questions are as follows.

My goal would be to plant on top of it and then flood in the fall.

How thick should the clay base be to hold water?
If I use a pond liner how much soil should be on top of it to support plant life.

Thanks,

Luther

Twelve inches of well-compacted clay can typically hold water that is 10' deep.

I expect that you could probably get by with 6". However, beware that the thinner you go the more likely it becomes that your variance in spreading may become "fatal". I have worked on "low precision" construction projects (like parking lots) where I could see several inches of variance in the grading by the equipment operators - even though we had perfectly staked out the grade.

You probably therefore need to be very precise on matching your grade stakes, or add a little extra clay depth as a safety margin.

When you scrape the pond site, make sure to stock pile your best top soil in several places around the perimeter. I would cover with a few inches of top soil if I did a pond liner OR a clay-sealed pond. Your planted rice/millet etc. would not do well on hard-packed clay.

However, I do not know how many inches of top soil you actually need?

Also, what species of diving ducks do you have in your area? I think they would prefer rooting their favorite foods out of fluffy top soil rather than hard-packed clay.

Good luck on your duck pond project!

Thanks for the insights.

Luke,

I forgot to add that there are some good waterfowl pond discussions in the archives.

The search function is a little cumbersome, but if you can find them, you can probably get some valuable information out of those old threads.