Saturday 3 February 2018

Runoff and Dams


I was surprised when I found this pool of muddy water as I walked through the beaver swamp here at Bamff. I used to call this the 'Wet Wood', but the character has changed so much with all the work that the beavers have undertaken over the years.


Downstream of the dam the water was clear.



I went in search of the source of the muddy runoff and found that it started with a puddle on the public road.




The water flowed down this ditch. The dam in the first photograph is a few yards round the corner in the distance.


some of it flowed into this tributary of the main ditch and 


flowed into this pond. You can see the lighter sediment laden plume of water. It is joined by another sediment rich body of water that has run off a nearby field. The direction of flow is towards the dam in the top right of the photo, built by the beavers that inhabit this swamp.


Here is the dam through which the muddy runoff must flow. I think it is between 70 and 80 paces long.




This shows the clean water that the dam has filtered.

It was good to see such a clear example of the capacity of beaver dams to stop excess sediments. I suppose that the water on the road contained traces of oil, rubber from tyres and so on. 

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