If you’re interested in building brine ponds for evaporation, you’ve probably already covered the big factors like annual temperatures, precipitation, average humidity, and average wind speeds, but there are some lesser known factors that are easy to overlook. Surface area is one of those things. At first glance, it may make sense to build deeper ponds with a smaller surface area since more depth allows you to store more volume. However, the bigger a pond’s surface area, the faster it will evaporate. Depth, for that matter, plays a role, too, with deeper ponds taking more time to evaporate. To harvest quickly, design broad, shallow ponds to maximize evaporation times.
Another factor that many don’t stop to consider is the color of the pond’s liner. Fortunately, most liners marketed for this purpose are black—and they should be because dark colors absorb more sunlight. This in turn warms the water and speeds evaporation. Studies have shown that ponds with dark liners will evaporate up to 10% more quickly than ponds with light colored liners.
