A census of ponds in Cheshire, North West England

Abstract

1. Of the 41 564 small water bodies (‘ponds’) identified on Ordnance Survey maps of Cheshire in ca 1870, 61% had disappeared by the early 1990s. 2. Pond loss has taken place across the county and is associated with a number of different replacement land-uses; loss rates are highest in areas of urban development. 3. Using aerial photography, only 45% of extant ponds show areas of open water, many being completely overshaded by trees or with substantial emergent vegetation. 4. The effects of pond loss are now being felt in increasing fragmentation of the total resource; the density of wet ponds over the entire county has fallen from 17.8 km−2 (ca 1870) to 3.25 km−2 (1992/93), and the ‘connectedness’ of the pond landscape has been similarly reduced. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.