<p>Earthen pond failures pose a frequently underestimated risk in water resources management, particularly in agricultural regions where such ponds are often constructed without formal engineering design, located outside natural riverbeds, and operated without continuous inflow. These conditions lead to failure mechanisms, breach development processes, and hydraulic responses that differ markedly from those of conventional dams, predicting breach parameters highly uncertain. Among these parameters, breach formation time is especially difficult to estimate due to the lack of analytical models specifically developed for ponds. This study presents a new analytical methodology to predict breach parameters (formation time, average width, and side slope) for ponds with storage capacities below 5 Hm³. A comprehensive database of 229 cases, including 68 real-world breach events, was compiled and used to develop and validate the model. Results indicate that the proposed improved the estimation of peak discharge compared with existing approaches in 99.94% of cases, providing a more reliable basis for hydraulic simulations for breach width in 66.45% and 96.95% for breach formation time of the cases. The findings offer a tailored and validated tool for small pond applications, strengthening risk assessment, improving flood modelling accuracy, and supporting water resources planning in rural and agricultural contexts.</p>