Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and Upscaling
ABSTRACT There is increasing interest in installing water storage ponds as part of natural flood management (NFM) approaches being implemented globally. Despite decades of experience with constructing flood storage ponds within civil engineering disciplines, there remains little empirical evidence o...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Journal of Flood Risk Management |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.70059 |
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| author | Leo Peskett Sarah Collins Andrew Black Matthew Arran Alan MacDonald Andy Young |
| author_facet | Leo Peskett Sarah Collins Andrew Black Matthew Arran Alan MacDonald Andy Young |
| author_sort | Leo Peskett |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | ABSTRACT There is increasing interest in installing water storage ponds as part of natural flood management (NFM) approaches being implemented globally. Despite decades of experience with constructing flood storage ponds within civil engineering disciplines, there remains little empirical evidence of their effectiveness in NFM. In NFM, ‘natural’ ponds use green infrastructure, are often smaller but more numerous, and are built and maintained by land managers rather than engineers. Here we investigate six flood storage ponds in the 69 km2 Eddleston NFM pilot catchment in Scotland, UK, analysing impact on peak stream flows at different scales and pond designs. The ponds generally reduce peak stream flows where they have large available capacity, catchments are small (< 1 km2), and events are low magnitude (> 20% Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP)). No discernible flow reduction was observed at the largest pond and catchment (64 km2) for the largest (~21% AEP) event. There was significant variability between ponds, and gains can be made in engineering pond inlet/outlet structures, maintenance, and more widespread installation. The findings suggest that natural storage ponds have most potential to contribute to flood control in small catchments (< 10 km2) and small flood events (> 25% AEP), when they are carefully designed and maintained, and sufficient in number. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e0670b623db74468a63ef27b1e6bef0b |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1753-318X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Flood Risk Management |
| spelling | doaj-art-e0670b623db74468a63ef27b1e6bef0b2025-08-20T03:28:00ZengWileyJournal of Flood Risk Management1753-318X2025-06-01182n/an/a10.1111/jfr3.70059Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and UpscalingLeo Peskett0Sarah Collins1Andrew Black2Matthew Arran3Alan MacDonald4Andy Young5Heriot‐Watt University Edinburgh UKBritish Geological Survey Edinburgh UKUniversity of Dundee Dundee UKBritish Geological Survey Edinburgh UKBritish Geological Survey Edinburgh UKWallingford Hydrosolutions Wallingford UKABSTRACT There is increasing interest in installing water storage ponds as part of natural flood management (NFM) approaches being implemented globally. Despite decades of experience with constructing flood storage ponds within civil engineering disciplines, there remains little empirical evidence of their effectiveness in NFM. In NFM, ‘natural’ ponds use green infrastructure, are often smaller but more numerous, and are built and maintained by land managers rather than engineers. Here we investigate six flood storage ponds in the 69 km2 Eddleston NFM pilot catchment in Scotland, UK, analysing impact on peak stream flows at different scales and pond designs. The ponds generally reduce peak stream flows where they have large available capacity, catchments are small (< 1 km2), and events are low magnitude (> 20% Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP)). No discernible flow reduction was observed at the largest pond and catchment (64 km2) for the largest (~21% AEP) event. There was significant variability between ponds, and gains can be made in engineering pond inlet/outlet structures, maintenance, and more widespread installation. The findings suggest that natural storage ponds have most potential to contribute to flood control in small catchments (< 10 km2) and small flood events (> 25% AEP), when they are carefully designed and maintained, and sufficient in number.https://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.70059flood storage pondsgreen infrastructurenatural flood managementnature‐based solutions |
| spellingShingle | Leo Peskett Sarah Collins Andrew Black Matthew Arran Alan MacDonald Andy Young Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and Upscaling Journal of Flood Risk Management flood storage ponds green infrastructure natural flood management nature‐based solutions |
| title | Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and Upscaling |
| title_full | Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and Upscaling |
| title_fullStr | Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and Upscaling |
| title_full_unstemmed | Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and Upscaling |
| title_short | Using Storage Ponds in Natural Flood Management Schemes in Practice: The Need for Fine‐Tuning and Upscaling |
| title_sort | using storage ponds in natural flood management schemes in practice the need for fine tuning and upscaling |
| topic | flood storage ponds green infrastructure natural flood management nature‐based solutions |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.70059 |
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