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I have a young male and female RES, only about a month. They live in 3 interconnected ponds in my backyard (each pond about 1500 gal). At first I was surprised how often and quickly they moved between the ponds but today I found the female in my front yard pond about 150 ft uphill. I don’t understand why they would risk venturing that far away from habitat that provides them everything they need ( food, clean water, basking areas). I would expect them to take such a risk only if some existing threat was worst than the risk of never finding water and not making it back to the pond they left? Any thoughts?

Hard to know what they are thinking. It's possible they are not accustomed to the new environment and don't find the food suitable. Both my RES like to roam around, I think it's part of their personality and acclimation to people. My male RES would also endlessly harass her too, so there might be some aggression there as well.

Ahh, I didn’t think about the male harassing the female, that could be the culprit. Do you think they have good spatial memory? In other words, if they wander way off exploring somewhere they can usually find their way back to the pond?

I would think so but RES are pretty stubborn and would probably keep going in another direction rather than think it would be safer to return to the pond.

It appears my female is gone permanently. I've enclosed the ponds so the male doesn't wander off as well (although he doesn't seem to have any interest in doing so. If I were to get him a companion, would it be better to get another male rather than a female that he will harass?

After I posted this question I read the "co-habitation" information and it appears my single male should be perfectly fine without a companion. Does that sound right? Seems another male could lead to serious aggression between the two and same with another female. Maybe best to keep just the one. Any suggestions on this? I have plenty of room, including 3 interconnected ponds so if they wanted to stay separated they easily could.

Males or females are just fine kept alone and yes, males will almost always become aggressive. Unless you have a way to keep them separate, I would keep him alone.