Great Bay (New Hampshire)

Great Bay is a tidal estuary located in Strafford and Rockingham counties in eastern New Hampshire, United States.

Its outlet is at Hilton Point in Dover, New Hampshire, where waters from the bay flow into the Piscataqua River, thence proceeding southeast to the Atlantic Ocean near Portsmouth.

Located within the Gulf of Maine watershed, the Great Bay Estuary is a drowned river valley composed of high-energy tidal waters, deep channels and fringing mudflats.

The Great Bay Estuary is a tidally-dominated system and is the drainage confluence of three major rivers, the Lamprey, Squamscott, and Winnicut.

These rivers, several small creeks and their tributaries and ocean water from the Gulf of Maine create the Great Bay estuarine hydrosystem.

In order of abundance they are: eelgrass meadows, mudflats, salt marsh, channel bottom, and rocky intertidal.

A simple, flat-bottomed boat, the gundalow, was developed to make use of the tides and carry heavy loads in shallow waters.

The lumber produced also fueled the shipbuilding business along the Piscataqua River until steam-powered steel vessels became cheaper to build.

Blue marine clay was harvested from along the estuary shores and made into bricks that were used to build locally and all around New England.

[2] The Gulf of Maine, of which Great Bay is a branch, is often considered by scientists and the public alike as one of the most pristine marine environments on the East Coast of the United States.

The Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve occupies several portions of the bay's shoreline and protects numerous land and water areas around the estuary, including salt marshes, rocky shores, bluffs, woodlands, open fields, and riverine systems and tidal waters.