Calculate pond volume, excavation, spillway width, and catchment requirements -- with BC Dam Safety Regulation checks built in.
The best pond site sits just below the keypoint -- where a valley's slope changes from steep to gentle and the valley begins to widen. Look for where the terrain narrows upstream (giving you a shorter dam wall for maximum storage) and where a large catchment area funnels water toward a single collection point. This is Yeomans' optimal dam location: high enough for gravity-fed irrigation, with the landscape doing most of the engineering work.
Depth matters more than surface area. A pond 2-4 metres deep loses far less water to evaporation than a shallow spread, holds more volume per square metre of surface, and stays cooler in summer -- critical for aquatic health and livestock water quality. The 0.4 volume factor in the calculations below accounts for the sloped banks that give your pond a bowl profile rather than a bathtub shape.
Enter your site details below. All fields are used to calculate volume, excavation, spillway sizing, and regulatory status.
Swell Farms designs and builds across Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. A calculator gives you the numbers -- a site visit gives you the plan.