Getting to Know Your Pond

how big is your pond it seems like an easy question but few Pond donors have ever actually measured their Pond and most overestimate the size of their Pond the pond area should be calculated based on some simple measurements depending on the pond shape the area of a roughly square or rectangular Pond can be estimated by simply measuring and multiplying the width and length of the pond sides but most ponds have an irregular shape one solution is to measure numerous transects across the pond perhaps when the pond is covered with ice to get an average width and length that can be multiplied together to get an approximate surface area the more measurements that you make the more accurate your result will be if you do your measurements in feet your result will be in square feet which can be easily converted to acres handheld GPS systems have become quite common over the past 5 years as they have become more affordable they can also be used to calculate the pond area by walking the pond perimeter and storing way points in the GPS unit software that comes with most GPS units can then be used to calculate the pond area from the waypoints once you have the pond area the volume of water in the pond can also be calculated by measuring the pond average the easiest way to do this is to use a weight and string marked in feet to measure depths along two or more canoe the volume of water in the pond is determined by multiplying the pond area in acres by the average depth in feet to get the number of acre feet of water in the pond a final important feature of your pond is the depth and slope of the pond bottom most plant and algae growth begins in less than 3 or 4 fet of water this water depth allows sufficient sunlight to penetrate to the pond bottom to allow plant growth to begin from the sediment this is true of all kinds of aquatic plants including sub Ed emergent floating plants and algae minimizing the area of the pond that has less than 3 or 4et of water will minimize the area that can be colonized by plants analogy this can be done when constructing the pond or dredging can be used on existing ponds to deepen the edges