Aquabytes Articles

Dams are engineered structures designed to impound water. Most ponds primarily have an earthen dam, but they can also be constructed of concrete. There are many key factors to investigate when assessing the condition of your dam. Earthen dam embankments should be vegetated with native grasses to provide adequate ground coverage and prevent erosion and rills from forming. It is important to routinely maintain any non-native species of vegetation on the backside of the dam.

The hot, steamy days of late summer can provide the perfect conditions for one of our favorite rare, strange-but-true aquatic oddities: freshwater jellyfish. Native to China, Craspedacusta sowerbii has been found on every continent other than Antarctica—including here in Georgia! They can appear suddenly in warm waters where they had never been seen before.

Evan Carpenter is a Georgia native whose love for the outdoors started at an early age when older family members introduced him to the outdoor lifestyle. When Evan wasn’t out exploring, hunting or fishing, he could be found on a ball field as sports also played a major role in his upbringing. Soccer eventually took over and he continued to play competitively through his high school days. Having an extensive appreciation for the outdoors was

Spillway Inspection/Maintenance Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean is officially underway and a surplus of rain is in the forecast. Now is a great time to inspect your spillways to ensure that they can handle the impending surge of stormwater. Spillways, overflows, standpipes or even “the drain” are many of the common references to what in the world of stormwater management is defined as the Outlet Control Structure (OCS). Outlet Control Structures are engineered structures

Effectively managing stormwater can be especially problematic when urbanization changes the hydrology of the landscape. The engineering and science of properly managing stormwater has drastically changed over the last 50 years. This better understanding has given rise to the re-evaluation of the past methods utilized to see how to best harness natural systems in lieu of strictly structural components. One of the methods commonly used in the past to manage stormwater was replacing natural streams

On a recent fishing expedition up on the Toccoa River up near Blue Ridge, Georgia a fisherman came up with a scary surprise of the slimy four legged kind. Actually it was Hellbender. The Hellbender is North America’s largest salamander, growing as large as 29 inches long. Their Asian cousins, the Chinese Giant Salamander, can grow to almost 6 feet in length! How did these relatively harmless creatures come to be called by such a

Well, spring is here! The bees are buzzing, the flowers are blooming, and the trees are turning green—which is a good thing. But is your pond also showing signs of green floating string mats or what is often affectionally called “pond scum”? Given the season, probably so. The more appropriate terminology for this condition would be referred to as nuisance string algae. Algal overgrowth is by far one of the most common issues for pond

How Fountains continue to change Environments Most Historians would agree that the first evidence of a man-made fountain was from around 3,000 B.C.E. in Mesopotamia. This fountain would have been more than likely powered by gravity, the water source being higher in elevation than the basin where the water would be discharged. Often, these types of early fountains were associated with sacred gardens and religious areas. As technology improved, specifically the ability to move water