Pond - Definition and Overview

A garden pond.

A pond is:

• A body of water smaller than a lake. Used for small bodies of water, generally smaller than one would require a boat to cross; Also: garden pond (see water garden), engineered treatment features (see treatment pond), and field units in agriculture (for example, "pondfields" for rice or taro culture) and aquaculture.
• Temporary accumulation of water from runoff (ponded water).
• A now obsolete metric unit of force, see kilopond.
• A reference to the Atlantic Ocean, often used to describe events in the United States or United Kingdom ("...across the pond").

Due to the closed environment of ponds, such small bodies of water normally developed self contained eco-systems. Ponds in heavily vegitated areas also display the formation of "scum", which is a common term for dead and decaying vegetation condensing on the water skin of the pond.