Education

Hydrology

Rain water

From the catchment area above the ponds rain trickles through the vegetation and soil following the gradient down hill, flowing into natural and man-made channels on the surface and underground. The water collected in this network of channels eventually flows into the ponds; heavy rain sometimes runs off the surface of the fields directly into the ponds.

All the ponds are interlinked by underground pipes following the gradient of the fields. Water runs into the next pond when the water level overflows into the connecting pipe. The water in the lowest pond flows through a pipe under the old railway line into a stream which runs into the North Tyne. This joins the South Tyne near Hexham and runs into the North Sea at Tynemouth.

www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/weather/rain_gauge.shtml