Retention ponds why do we need them? My sub-division has two. Can’t the water just get drained to the river?
In: Engineering
I’m a geologist, so this is technically not my area of expertise, but I had a conversation with a hydrogeologist once where this came up.
Retention ponds drain slowly. If a large amount of rain falls in an area, how quickly it ends up in creeks/bayous/rivers is a big factor in how bad an area floods.
If you just have a ton of impermeable concrete channels and pipes that instantly direct all the rain into the waterways the flood level will peak quickly and catastrophically. However, if you have retention ponds that allow large amounts of rain to absorb into the ground or otherwise drain slowly it reduces the strain on the creeks and rivers.
This was how it was explained to me. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can weigh in.
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