Tuesday, 14 January 2014

West Weald Pond Survey

One of the survey ponds, now overgrown and silting up
Last year I took part in a survey of the ponds in the West Weald Landscape Area.  The results have just been published and they are, not surprisingly, rather disappointing.  Few of the ponds were in good condition and most, with a few notable exceptions are declining.  The problem is, of course, that many of them no longer serve a useful purpose.  They were mostly man-made, created by damming streams in order to water livestock or drive some industrial process. Now, either the livestock have gone or water is piped to the fields or brought in bowsers.
The West Weald Landscape Area is mainly in West Sussex, and includes the Low Weald area north of Petworth.  The objective of the survey was to get some baseline data on the state of ponds in the area.  20 one kilometre grid squares were selected at random and all of the ponds in each square were surveyed (or at least a survey was attempted).  I did two squares, four ponds in total.  We were given a short training session in the survey protocol at the Sussex Wildlife Trust headquarters at Woods Mill.  This included some simple water quality tests, pond dipping for invertebrates, identifying plants and animals including invasive species and making a sketch map.  Landowner permission was obtained and one of the objectives was for the organisers to connect with landowners and offer help and advice on wildlife issues.
Getting to my ponds involved some long walks and pushing through some dense vegetation.  It was actually great fun, especially pond dipping with the little net: an opportunity to reconnect with your inner eleven-year-old!  One of my ponds was in pretty good condition and the owner had a programme of restoration in hand.  It seemed to be the top one of a now disused chain of ponds which had been created by damming a stream cutting down through a short, narrow valley.  These probably had some sort of industrial application and from the name of the area there might have been a connection with the cloth trade.

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