Wednesday, May 13, 2009

More Sedimentation Ponds for AquaMats

One of the tasks of my current project is to reduce nutrient inputs from shrimp ponds to the local environment. As we have discussed, one of the ways that is done is by constructing sedimentation ponds. These, intuitively enough, trap sediment and nutrients attached to sediments. Eventually these ponds fill and need rehabilitation.

Thanks to some help from AquaMar Shrimp Farm, we will be able to use Aquamats in a freshly re-dug pond.

Meet Adolpho.



Adolpho operates a dredge at the farm. He will be creating deep areas along the sides of this sedimentation pond where our AquaMats can be deployed.



Presently, the pond has filled in from years of use. The trees you see growing in it are white mangroves.

Here you can see the layers of sediment that have been trapped in the pond over the years of use.



Adolpho will not only be scraping out some of that sediment, he will also be creating small, separate catchment areas inside the sedimentation pond that we can use to test the efficacy of the Aquamats as nutrient traps.

Once the Inventor's club substrate and biofilm removal system is in place, they could be deployed in those catchment areas as well.

Many thanks to Adolpho, AquaMar farm manager Linda Thorton and owner Mike Dunker for all their support.

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