Finding Old Ponds

Across the UK old ghosts rest forgotten across the landscape but if you look you can find them. Relict ponds, silted up, filled, removed from the countryside by the shifting demands of farming and land management. Their shadows still exist in field depressions, hollows, areas that hold water when it rains. Tools like Know Your Place allow you to overlay historic charts onto modern maps, revealing the ponds of past landscapes. On these old maps, you can spot the tell-tale blue shapes and then pull the modern map over to see if the pond remains—or if it's become a ghost. Some of the locations where relict ponds haven’t quite disappeared altogether we call Zombie Ponds, these are easier to find but restoration follows similar routes.

The Restoration Process

Once they’re found time can be restored. Wiltshire Wildlife Trust’s Becky Gee says, ‘when you go out and find a wet area it could be a Ghost Pond.’ She works on pond creation and resurrecting Ghost Ponds, ‘ideally you want to restore the original shape, but the space isn’t always there,’ she says. Becky means time and space have shifted leaving square pegs for round holes. It means some ponds can only part resurrected. But when you breathe water back into the landscape complete ecosystems can be restored.

Funding and Biodiversity

Finding a Ghost Pond doesn’t guarantee restoration. To rejuvenate them requires landowner buy-in, ecological knowledge and, that final tab of the jigsaw, funds. Wiltshire Wildlife Trust are a delivery agent on Natural England’s District Level Licensing Scheme which provides funding for pond creation, and restoration of Ghost Ponds.. Developers pay into the fund as part of the new Biodiversity Net Gain rules creating an annual revenue that’s directed straight to nature conservation where ponds benefit Great Crested Newt populations. Of course, any pond suitable for newts is also suitable for complete wetland ecosystems creating hums of life with dragonflies and birds. The underwater world of diving beetles, amphibians and backswimmers also thrive. Those crossing the barrier, the Dragonfly and Newt, creatures evolved to push through surface tension and emerge as something else, find habitats for critical life stages and so wetland symphonies are formed.

The Science of Great Crested Newts

The District Level Licensing Scheme is based on targeted assessments covering specific habitats and species as well as differences between geographic locations. Like all species Great Crested Newts have fundamental and realised niches. They need woodland and grassland for shelter, hibernation and foraging, ponds with neutral pH for breeding and tadpole development as well as good dispersal routes between potential habitats. They don’t like urban areas, sandy soils, rivers or saltmarsh. To understand where they exist, and where they could exist, Natural England put the information into species distribution models. These models grade both positive and negative aspects of available habitat, species specific requirements, landscape, topography, water, rivers, urban development. The variables are assessed to establish paths of least resistance for dispersing and migrating Great Crested Newts. A range of statistical algorithms create the final ensemble model which averages the inputs to create maps and zoned areas. Each county, or region, then receives a map output showing Core Zones (with existing Great Crested Newt Populations) and Fringe Zones (with easy dispersal potential from Core Zones), at a scale of 25m2, set within a background of less favourable (adjacent to major roads) and unfavourable areas (mountain tops). The model is updated on a five-year rolling programme.

Success Stories

These Strategic Opportunities Areas are utilised by regional delivery agents to create pond restoration projects. Wiltshire Wildlife Trust joined the scheme close to the start of the programme in 2020. Since then, the trust’s Water Team have created and restored 62 ponds, including 5 Ghost Ponds. This year ten more will be created and restored including two Ghost Ponds on the Great Chalfield Estate. In addition to Wiltshire Wildlife Trusts efforts, FWAG and Wiltshire Council have created and restored ponds across the county. The ponds have an average wetted area of 150m2, and take one to two days to create, providing near-instant habitats for plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. The success of the scheme is revealed through annual e-DNA sampling. This year’s results gave a return of nearly 50% ponds holding Great Crested Newt DNA. This is expected to rise as the ponds become established over the coming years.

Breathing life into ghosts, creating new wetlands, bringing zombies back from the brink, reinvigorates nature and freshwater habitats. Adding mosaics of life that dot farmed landscapes and coexists with our needs. Re-lived ghosts are buzzing natural riches watering the countryside. All that’s needed is a catalyst, and the District Level Licensing Scheme provides the opportunity to create quick, and long-lasting, wins for the natural world.

Contact

Do you have an old pond or think you might have a zombie/ghost pond? You can contact the water team for advice and information on restoration water@wiltshirewildlife.org