How to Manage a pond for wildlife

Our freshwater ponds are essential for an incredible variety of plants and animals with 2/3 of all freshwater species relying on them. Half a million ponds have been lost over the last 100 years and one in five remaining ponds are thought to be in poor condition.

Ponds can have a positive impact on environmental issues such as climate change and flooding and can thrive in a huge variety of environments including urban and rural gardens, floodplains and wetlands, woodlands, and in the farmed landscape.

One of the best ways of bringing more wildlife into an area, ponds can be very diverse, supporting similar aquatic plants to lakes, and even more large invertebrates than rivers.

Before you begin any management work on a pond, assess what is currently living on site. This will help you work out what management might be best across your site, while avoiding disturbance to rare or protected species. Some species, such as lichens, ferns and mosses, will have taken centuries to build up and can be very quickly impacted by machinery, a change in light conditions or competition with other species. Others may be affected in unexpected ways; for example, bats may be disturbed if the ambient conditions around their roost are altered.

Who can help you do this?

There are likely to be skills and local knowledge within nearby wildlife groups, and individual naturalists and ecologists. You could also upskill yourself and/or your team by going on identification courses offered by Wildlife Trusts or other organisations.

What species are protected?

Some animals, such as hazel dormice, great crested newts and all bat species, need a licensed person to check nest boxes, ponds and roosts for their presence. These animals need to be protected from disturbance and habitat changes.

In general, less is more when it comes to managing a pond and they thrive by themselves as long as they are protected from pollution including farm run off. There are a couple of things to consider, especially in the first few years of a pond's life, that can make a positive difference.

Planting

Allow a new pond to colonise naturally. The ‘new-pond’ stage is very short compared to the whole life of a pond. It is important not to shorten it further by adding plants right at the beginning. Many animals and plants search out and thrive in ponds during their early years and then move on once the pond matures.

Invasive species

Monitor the plant life that establishes itself in the first few years after a pond is created. Bare earth can quickly be colonised by invasive species such as New Zealand swamp-stonecrop, parrot’s feather and water primrose.

These plants should be removed before they take a hold, in order to give native plants a chance to establish themselves. If left, they can very difficult to remove.

Fencing

This is not essential, but if waterfowl, grazing animals or people are likely to use the site in large numbers, it may be worth protecting the area by putting up temporary fencing around part, or all, of the pond to prevent pollution or the edges slipping.

A well-designed and well-sited pond can quickly become a rich wildlife haven, attracting not only those species that we think of as aquatic, but also many other animals that come to ponds to drink water or to find food. By creating pond mosaics and wetland complexes that mimic natural systems, it is possible to provide a mix of permanent, semi-permanent and seasonal pools to maximise variety of habitat.

Creation versus restoration

Cheshire is affectionately known as the pond capital of Europe and is claimed to have more ponds per square kilometre than anywhere else in Europe. But, with 70% of ponds in a degraded and neglected state, the role that restoration has to play in Cheshire should not be overlooked. This is especially true given the speed with which ponds respond to management.

It is also worth remembering that pond creation is at a disadvantage to restoration in that there are no existing aquatic communities to revive.

Location

Choosing an appropriate site for your pond is probably the most important decision you can take when creating your pond and will have ramifications on how good it will be for wildlife.

Clean water

The location of a pond will determine the quality and quantity of its water source. Whilst those ponds with fluctuating water levels and that dry out occasionally are very valuable (and often excellent for amphibians as top fish predators die), ponds that dry out annually are less so, and are often quickly taken over by invasive vegetation and tend to concentrate pollutants in the ever-decreasing waterbody.

It’s best to avoid locations where the landuse in the pond catchment area is intensive. Woodlands, heath and rough grasslands generally make better sites than arable or grassland where the ground is regularly disturbed or is likely to be high in nutrients. Avoid all sites where fertilisers or pesticides are applied and could run off.

If you intend to put a pond on ex-intensively farmed land it could be worth soil stripping in obvious water catchment areas.

Areas that receive run-off from roads, tracks, houses, yards or spoil heaps are also generally unsuitable.

Avoid drain arable ditch, steam or drain inflows into ponds as the water is usually quite polluted and likely to deposit polluted or enriched sediments. The extra silt could shorten a pond’s lifespan by centuries. With surface water seepage, the water is likely to be of a far better quality if the water is coming from less fertile or unfertilised ground.

Think carefully before locating ponds near to public paths or be prepared to design ways of mitigating against impacting on wildlife.

Planning permission and archaeology

Pond creation for anything other than livestock watering will usually require planning permission from your local district or borough council.

Ensure that your pond design looks appropriate in scale and design within the local landscape character and does not harm archaeological interest.

Make sure your pond will hold water

Ponds dug in areas naturally holding water, usually with clay bottoms, are generally the most robust. Things like polypropylene liners can be used but they will have a limited life and are expensive.

Be strategic

Ponds created close to existing wetland habitats are colonised more quickly and by a bigger range of species. If possible, place your pond where uncommon or rare species occur to help them create a stronghold.

Sometimes it is more important not to dig at all. Avoid destroying an already-valuable habitat to create a new one. This includes not only the ground to be dug, but also where the spoil is spread. Flower-rich grassland has obvious value, but areas of scrub, rough grassland and low-lying hollows can also be important habitats. Formerly intensively farmed land is more likely to be expendable, though it is worth consulting the Trust if in doubt.

By agreement with a local farmer and depending on the soil type, you may be able to spread pond spoil on agricultural land at a certain time of year. Sometimes you may be able to sell or give away the spoil to someone local.

Pond design

Designing your pond should be fun, but there are many features and types of ponds that need to be considered to maximise the benefit to wildlife.

Pond mosaic

Where possible try and create a network or mosaic of ponds. A wetland complex is much more likely to sustain wildlife than an isolated water feature and can be dug in all but the tightest of spots. The most valuable wildlife ponds are at least 25m square, but smaller ponds can be valuable.

Instead of digging a pond of 15m by 15m, consider creating a small complex comprising of a main pond of 10m by 10m, with around seven other smaller ponds ranging from 10m by 5m down to 0.5m diameter.

Try and make sure shallow and deeper pools are not connected to each other except at exceptionally high winter water levels.

The complexity allows opportunities for a bigger range of species. Pond depth and size are major factors determining community types. Provide mix of permanent, semi-permanent and seasonal pools to maximise variety of species.

An irregular outline looks more natural and provides a longer edge but avoid over-complicating the design. After all, the complex will require more maintenance.
Allocate the majority pond area to very shallow zones

Most wildlife is found in water less than 5cm deep, so it’s worth thinking about how you can vary your pond’s bank and its underwater profile.

The shallows which are underwater in winter, but dry in the summer are known as drawdown zones and are areas of high biological diversity – good for resting dragonflies, hunting flies and other wildlife. Incorporating a series of hummocks and hollows in the shallow drawdown zone maximises water edge zones as the pond water recedes.

Whilst shallow ponds of up to just 1m of water depth are excellent for wildlife, they are often impractical as they are colonised very quickly by invasive vegetation. So in small ponds especially, try and create a sharp drop-off to deeper water (to 1-2.5m) to prevent rapid growth over the whole pond by invasive plants and avoid disruptive removal of vegetation.

If the banks are likely to be grazed, subtle variations in topography will produce plant-community differences. If grazing is not likely, tall emergent plants will eventually dominate so subtle contours will be less useful.

Underwater stones and logs half in and half out of the water provide good cover and microhabitats for many aquatic species.

Try and avoid islands as they can encourage ducks, which have a detrimental effect on the wildlife value of the pond.

For more detailed toolkits on making ponds in the countryside visit Freshwater Habitats Trust’s Million Pond Project