Use of Stock Ponds for Hydrologic Research on Southwest Rangelands

Abstract

Five livestock watering ponds on the walnut gulch experimental watershed were instrumented to evaluate the use of these ponds as a method for comparing rainfall amounts with runoff sediment volumes. Pond drainage area, vegetative cover, soil type, percent slope, and years of record were tested. Instrumentation consisted of water level recorders, and a topographic survey of each stock pond to ascertain its storage capacity. The results to date have been insufficient to reach definite conclusions due to instrumentation and surveying problems, and because of the natural variability of thunderstorm rainfall. Since most of these problems have now been corrected, future data should yield valuable hydrologic data for semiarid rangelands by means of these instrumented stock ponds.