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Education

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The Piscataqua Maritime Region

New Hampshire has the shortest coastline of any US coastal state. Yet just east of Rye’s Odiorne Point lies the mouth of the Piscataqua River. Here the ocean tide comes flooding in twice each day, driving salty currents upstream, through Little Bay and into Great Bay. Upriver the seawater is gradually diluted by the fresh waters of seven rivers, which drain 930 square miles of watershed – 25% of the shorelands of the estuary are in Maine, 75% in New Hampshire.

This brackish mix creates the Great Bay Estuary ecosystem, with habitats such as underwater eel grass beds, intertidal rocky shores, tidal marshes and mud flats. Reaching 15 miles inland to Great Bay, this arm of the sea is one of the most recessed estuaries in the country, adding 152 miles of additional tidal shoreline in New Hampshire and 52 miles in Maine.

Great Bay (pilot-Tom Haas, photo-Ralph Morang)

Rivers and bays in the Piscataqua Region:

Dover, NH – Bellamy River & Cochecho River
Durham, NH – Oyster River
Eliot, ME – Spinney Creek & Piscataqua River
Exeter, NH – Squamscott River
Greenland, NH – Winnicut River & Great Bay
Kittery, ME – Spruce & Chauncey Creeks, Piscataqua River
New Castle, NH – Little Harbor, Piscataqua River
Newfields, NH – Squamscott River
Newington, NH – Little Bay
Newmarket, NH – Lamprey River
Portsmouth, NH – Piscataqua River
Rye, NH – Rye Harbor, Little Harbor, Sagamore Creek, Witch Creek, & Seavey Creek
South Berwick, ME – Great Works River & Salmon Falls River
Stratham, NH – Great Bay
York, ME – York River & Brave Boat Harbor