What is dredging and desilting of a lake or other watercourse?
Desilting a lake, pond or river is the process of removing the build up of silt, sludge and other materials that have deposited in the watercourse over time.
Dredging has historically been the most common method to remove sediment from the bed and or banks of lakes etc. It can cause significant environmental impacts and damage to marine ecosystems, due to the mechanical processes and use of diggers to excavate, scrape and collect sludge and silt.
While the process will clear the watercourse of sediment, it can result in both short and long-term issues, such as water pollution and even release toxins from the disturbed sediment.
Why do it?
Nowadays, the process is most often used to decrease the possibility of flooding (albeit it care and attention has to be paid to the risk of unintended consequences, including increasing flooding downstream). Desilting also aims to improve the environment for fish life and supports leisure activities, such as fishing, boating or swimming.
How to remove silt from lakes, ponds and rivers in an environmentally friendly manner
The above leads us onto how to desilt and remove sludge without disturbing ecosystems and reduce the environmental impact
Using innovative mobile dewatering equipment we clean silt and duckweed from ponds, lakes, rivers and ditches without the use of excavation machines (i.e. diggers).
It’s a much safer solution for aquatic life compared to silt dredging using heavy machinery and digging up the silt and placing it in heavy trucks.
Find out more about our “no dig” technology for desilting and speak to one of the team.
