Today, approximately 400,000 hectares of abandoned ponds exist, closed by disease and pollution – telling signs of the boom-and-bust shrimp industry.
With its flower-rich meadows, woodland and ponds, Ash Common in the village of Ash Priors near Taunton is a lovely corner of unspoilt countryside.
Water from rivers, ponds, puddles and rainwater can be filtered through the system and safely drunk.
Most British species prefer ponds or slow-moving water, but not the golden-ringed dragonfly, a true northerner and happiest on an acid moorland stream – like this female with her elongated body banded in black and yellow.
Cleared forests and ruined wetlands are turned into shrimp ponds, oil ports, tourist hotels, golf courses and marinas.
In the evening the mesmeric, amplified rumbling of the bullfrogs draws you up to the hotel's ornamental ponds.
Millions of hectares of coastal wetlands, including mangroves, have been cleared to make room for shrimp ponds excavated a meter deep into the wetland substrate then filled with briny water and shrimp.
A series of spring-fed ponds provides the perfect conditions for bog-loving Gunnera manicata.
The paddies and ponds were poisoned, so the ducks died.
The burgeoning industrial revolution and a rapidly expanding railway network during the 19th century put thousands of folk within reach of the canals, ponds and flooded quarry pits that were by-products of industry.
On fine evenings in a park in Nawala, a suburb of Colombo, the capital, office workers and families mingle among winding paths and ponds.
