Ponds and the importance of their history: an audit of pond numbers, turnover and the relationship between the origins of ponds and their contemporary plant communities in south-east Northumberland, UK

Abstract

Citation: Jeffries, Mike (2011) Ponds and the importance of their history: an audit of pond numbers, turnover and the relationship between the origins of ponds and their contemporary plant communities in south-east Northumberland, UK. Hydrobiologia, 689 (1 Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University's research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html This document may differ from the final, published version of the research and has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies. To read and/or cite from the published version of the research, please visit the publisher's website (a subscription may be required.) 1 Ponds and the importance of their history: an audit of pond numbers, turnover and the relationship between the origins of ponds and their contemporary plant communities in south east Northumberland, UK.

Artificial Aquatic Ecosystems

“…More broadly, the exclusion of artificial aquatic systems from policy protections eliminates an important motive for monitoring. In the UK, a recent precipitous decline in farm pond numbers and services in the UK sparked conservation concern and action [147]. The U.S. lacks the monitoring data necessary to characterize trends in its small artificial aquatic systems and to respond accordingly.…”

“…In contrast, the European Union's 1996 Water Framework Directive resolved to gradually expand protection "to all waters, surface waters and groundwater" [172]. In line with this inclusive view of aquatic ecosystems, pond degradation [173] and loss is a stated conservation concern for the EU [147] and NGOs [174]. Freshwater Habitats Trust's Million Ponds Project aims to "to reverse a century of pond loss, ensuring that once again the UK has over one million countryside ponds", and claims more than 1000 ponds created in 2008-2012, housing about 50 rare and declining species [175].…”

Variations in sediment organic carbon between different types of small natural ponds along Druridge Bay, Northumberland, UK

“…The Northumberland coastal plain has a relatively cool, dry, temperate climate (summer mean maximum temperatures are seldom >20 °C, annual rainfall usually <800 mm). The Druridge Bay area is densely populated with wetlands, primarily large lakes, dating from the 1950s onward, created for nature conservation (~10% of the area) or by land subsidence from underlying abandoned coal mines (Jeffries 2012). Smaller ponds and dune slacks occupy ~2% of the landscape; the majority are <400 m 2 , and many of these are pools and flashes of <10 m 2 .…”

Flood, drought and the inter-annual variation to the number and size of ponds and small wetlands in an English lowland landscape over three years of weather extremes

“…Naturally occurring ponds are commonly augmented by anthropogenic ponds created for a specific purpose such as cattle watering in Romania (Hartel & Von Wehrden, 2013), irrigation in Japan, (Usio et al, 2013), waste water treatment in Burkino Faso (Akponikpe et al, 2011) or accidently due to industry, e.g. subsidence ponds in north east England, Jeffries (2012). The importance of ponds as wildlife habitat went largely overlooked until the 1990s, especially smaller, temporary pools and wetlands, although there were occasional, prescient studies (Mozley, 1944).…”

“…Audits, primarily using historic maps, suggest that losses continued up until the 1990s (summarised Fairchild et al, 2013). Recent examples from the UK and USA followed the fate of ponds recorded on sequences of maps from the mid nineteenth century to the present day and showed more complex patterns, with periods of net loss, gains and the survival of individual ponds varying with origin and land-use (Jeffries, 2012;Fairchild et al, 2013). Note that ponds in very remote environments may also be under pressure from climate change, e.g.…”