A pond is an area filled with water, either natural or artificial, that is smaller than a lake. Ponds can be created by a wide variety of natural process (e.g. on floodplains as cut off river channels, by glacial processes, by peatland formation, in coastal dune systems, by beavers) or they can simply be isolated depressions (such as a kettle hole, vernal pool, prairie pothole or simply natural undulations in undrained land) filled by runoff, groundwater, or precipitation, or all three of these. Ponds may be freshwater or brackish in nature. 'Ponds' with saltwater, with a direct connection to the sea that maintains full salinity, would normally be regarded as part of the marine environment because they would not support fresh or brackish water organisms, so not really within the realm of f