Form a hyrdomorphology / geomorphology technical perspective, the following key fairly succinctly characterizes the differences.( from http://www.lakescientist.com/lake-facts/how-lakes-differ/ ): *Lakes vs. Ponds*
Both lakes and ponds are standing or slow-moving bodies of water. There are no official or scientific differences between lakes and ponds. Lakes are larger than ponds, but size is relative. What would be considered a pond in one region might be considered a lake in another. In general, water bodies that are considered lakes in dry areas would only be considered ponds in regions with abundant water resources where there are more (and larger) bodies of water. Despite the lack of official characteristics, there are several questions that are used to generally distinguish ponds from lakes: - Does light reach the bottom of the deepest point of the water body? - Does the water body only get small waves (i.e., smaller than 1ft/30cm in height)? - Is the water body relatively uniform in temperature? If these questions can be answered with a “yes,” the water body is likely a pond and not a lake.1 Other national technical typologies do include a lower area requirement ranging from .5 hectares ( 'two NFL football fields' for USA residents ) to 2 hectares, and other various factors like inflow/outflow, relation to the water table, sediment suspension, etc. The proper name of the water feature usually has nothing to do with these, though. Our area has numerous 'Lake Something's which are impoundments that barely would would classify as ponds, basically created by real estate developers as bulldozer scrapes into the local water table. Michael Patrick
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