| Bay Info
 Buzzards Bay is located in southeastern Massachusetts
(Bristol, Plymouth, and Barnstable Counties) bordered on the
south by the Elizabeth Island chain and to the east by Cape Cod.
The Bay contains approximately 228 square miles of surface water
with a watershed nearly twice that size. On the bay’s western
shore eight major river systems connect the bay’s shoreline with
inland lakes.
Seventeen municipalities are located either totally or
partially within the bay’s watershed, ten of which front
directly on the bay. The Buzzards Bay area’s population is
373,690 people and, of these, approximately 40% live in Greater
New Bedford.
Buzzards Bay provides estuarine habitat that affords numerous
economic, aesthetic, recreational, and wildlife benefits for the
coastal communities located within the watershed. These
benefits range from commercial shellfish harvesting to the
tourism contributions of scenic vistas and relatively good water
quality. Jagged coastlines create a wealth of diverse tidal
habitats for marine associated wildlife, including 5,000 acres
of saltmarsh, 10,500 acres of subtidal seagrass habitats, and
5,000 acres of productive tidal flats.
Despite localized contamination in the vicinity of New Bedford
Harbor, Buzzards Bay has avoided many of the water quality
problems that plague other more urbanized coastal watersheds on
the eastern seaboard. Nevertheless, land development and a
growing population have degraded the bay’s natural resources,
particularly in the bay’s 30 small coves and harbors where the
impacts of inappropriate development have most critically
impacted the estuary.
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Buzzards Bay Watershed
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Recent studies conclude that the major pollutant threats to
the Bay system are excessive nutrient loadings from polluted
runoff and groundwater and bacterial contamination from improper
sewage disposal and stormwater runoff. All of these
threats posed to the Bay are directly related to the
region’s population growth and land use. With
approximately 40% of the Bay’s forested drainage basin
located within ½ mile of the coastline, land management is
critical to the future of this estuary.
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As a way to preserve and protect water quality and living
resources in Buzzards Bay, a
Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP)
outlining a vision for the future of Buzzards Bay is currently
being implemented. It is based on the scientific and technical
information gathered by the
Buzzards
Bay Project National Estuary Program and analysis of the
present regulatory programs designed to protect the Bay.
For a more in-depth look at Buzzards Bay refer to
Ecology of Buzzards Bay: An
Estuarine Profile.
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