Dredging can easily damage the hydrology of these temporary ponds. Many ponds are seasonal or temporary and will dry out every summer - such ponds have received very little attention but they are in fact one of the most common freshwater habitats and they support a wide range of rare species including the Fairy Shrimp, the Mud Snail and the Natterjack Toad as well as some rare plants such as Adder's-tongue Spearwort. Indeed, very often the most useful way of improving a pond for wildlife is to reduce (or remove) overhanging trees which keep out light and can degrade the pond with heavy leaf-fall.Īccording to The Water Habitats Trust there are some common myths about ponds such as the idea that drying out is disastrous or that all ponds need to contain deep water to be valuable to wildlife. Digging new ponds can be much more useful to wildlife than planting trees - trees will self-seed if land is left alone whereas ponds are much less likely to create themselves. Often it is easier and cheaper to create a new pond than to dredge an existing one.
It may be that your pond is in a marshy area and you may be better off digging small shallow pools rather than undertaking big excavations. In deciding how much you should be dredging your pond or ponds you may want to do a sort of "loss vs benefit analysis" - ponds which are soak-aways from heavily-fertilised agricultural areas are likely to be poor in wildlife and by dredging you may be able to remove polluted sediments and hopefully create silt traps and ways to buffer the pond from future pollution.
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