What is the name for a hollow or indentation in the ground that
collects water, like a dew pond in Australia?

Hello dr_kate,

I am rather confident that the term you are looking for is 'vernal
pool'. The dew pond and the vernal pool both imply some sort of
supported species within it's existence.

A vernal pool is defined at the following site as :

"...natural or man-made depressions that hold water..."
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/vpoolart.htm

I was not very satisfied with giving you just one resource to base my
findings on, so here are a few more links, to include:


- More sites of interest and more definitions of 'Vernal Pool'

Vernal Pools
http://www.vernalpools.org/

What is a Vernal Pool?
http://www.uri.edu/cels/nrs/paton/whatisavp.html

Born to Explore
http://borntoexplore.org/trails/vpools.htm

- images of some vernal pools

http://ceres.ca.gov/biodiv/newsletter/v3n4/vernal.img.html

http://virtual.yosemite.cc.ca.us/randerson/Great%20Valley%20Museum/RedHillsVPlSesser.htm

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/enchantd/enchantd.htm

This was the only term that I could find that fits the bill, but
should you find that this is not what you were looking for, please ask
for clarification before rating this answer, as I would love to be of
further assistance.

To help with this answer I searched Google for:

vernal pool
://www.google.com/search?q=vernal+pool

Thanks for the great question!
SgtCory

---

Clarification of Answer by sgtcory-ga on 10 Nov 2002 16:32 PST

I should have noted that vernal pools do collect water, but in most
cases are seasonal.

In the agriculture sense, there are things called "cattle ways". This
is not as closely related but I thought it may interest you.

Google search results for cattle-ways
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Cattle+Ways%22

Thanks again -
SgtCory

Hmmm, not to take away from sgtcory-ga's answer, but could this be
more what you are looking for? This site goes into some detail about
dew ponds in England, which are specially constructed devices for
collecting and storing water extracted from the air.
     At one point the author states..."As a matter of fact, the name "
dew pond " was not known much more than a century ago. They were known
as " mist ponds." This name has been met with in Surrey, Kent, and
Wiltshire, and at Worms Heath, and the name of " fog pond " or " cloud
pond " was at one time well known at Hampstead.
     Here is the address for everything you could possibly want to
know about dew ponds...
http://www.dewponds.info/index.htm

Hope this helps, wayga-ga

The more comments the merrier I always say :-)

However in this case, the question was clearly not about what they
used to be called, rather - "like a dew pond in Australia" which would
translate into "What the rest of the world calls them.." or "What else
are they called outside of Australia as a whole?".

The term 'vernal pool' is a multi-national accepted and used term,
whereas the definition on the site given is stricly of an English
nature.

"Vernal pools are temporary wetlands that occur worldwide..."
http://es.epa.gov/ncer/fellow/progress/97/bolserro99.html

Thanks -
SgtCory