Water chemistry data for three agricultural ponds in the southern Coastal Plain of Georgia, USA

Ponds used to capture and store water for irrigation are a common feature in agricultural landscapes of the southern Coastal Plain of Georgia, USA. However, not much is known about the biogeochemistry of these ponds. As part of a project describing water quality in irrigation ponds of agricultural landscapes, pond water samples were collected from October 2021 to October 2023 at three ponds in Georgia, USA. Two ponds were located on a farm near Ty Ty, GA (Ty Ty Cooperator Farm, TCF) and one pond was located on a farm near Sumner, GA (Sumner Cooperator Farm, SCF; 31.614247, -83.710532). The two ponds on the TCF are identified as TCF-North (TCF-N; 31.5139853, -83.6177578) and TCF-South (TCF-S; 31.5086980, -83.6167862). The TCF is a rotational cropland while the SCF is an integrated crop-livestock farm. At each pond, water samples were collected at various locations along the edges (littoral sites) and in the center (limnetic sites). At the limnetic sites, samples were collected at the water surface and at 1 m depth. Water samples were collected in 500 mL pre-washed plastic bottles using a peristaltic pump and kept on ice until returned to the laboratory. The samples were filtered (934-AH, Whatman) and the filtrate was split for various chemical analyses including dissolved nutrients (ammonia-N, nitrate-N, nitrite-N, orthophosphate-P, and chloride) using flow injection analysis with colorimetric detection, dissolved micro- and macronutrients (aluminum, arsenic, boron, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, sodium, phosphorus, sulfur, silica, and vanadium) using Inductively Coupled Plasma with Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES), and optical characteristics of the dissolved organic matter using UV-Visible and Fluorescence spectroscopy.