Bohai Bay () is one of the three major bays of the

Bohai Sea The Bohai Sea ( zh, c=渤海, p=Bó Hǎi, l=Bo Sea) is a gulf/inland sea approximately in area on the east coast of Mainland China. It is the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea, to which it connects via the Bohai Strait. It ...

, the northwestern and innermost

gulf A gulf is a large inlet from an ocean or their seas into a landmass, larger and typically (though not always) with a narrower opening than a bay (geography), bay. The term was used traditionally for large, highly indented navigable bodies of s ...

of the Yellow Sea. It is bounded by the coastlines of eastern Hebei province ( Tangshan and

Cangzhou Cangzhou; Jilu Mandarin, locally pronounced as is a prefecture-level city in eastern Hebei province of China, province, People's Republic of China. At the 2020 Chinese census, 2020 census, Cangzhou's built-up (''or metro'') area made of Yunh ...

), Tianjin municipality and northern Shandong province ( Binzhou and Dongying) south of the Daqing River

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...

(which is an old

mouth A mouth also referred to as the oral is the body orifice through which many animals ingest food and animal communication#Auditory, vocalize. The body cavity immediately behind the mouth opening, known as the oral cavity (or in Latin), is also t ...

of Luan River in Laoting County) and north of the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

estuary. It is the most southerly water in the

northern hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

where sea ice can form. The Bohai Bay is the drainage destination of the Hai River and 15 other rivers. Due to these rivers' muddy runoff, the bay used to be a highly silty water body, but extensive damming of the various river systems has greatly diminished siltage. Nevertheless, the Bohai Bay in effect concentrates the runoff of the whole eastern

North China Plain The North China Plain () is a large-scale downfaulted rift basin formed in the late Paleogene and Neogene and then modified by the deposits of the Yellow River. It is the largest alluvial plain of China. The plain is bordered to the north by th ...

, and the Bay is an intensely polluted body of water. Reduced silt deposition and

sea level rise The sea level has been rising from the end of the last ice age, which was around 20,000 years ago. Between 1901 and 2018, the average sea level rose by , with an increase of per year since the 1970s. This was faster than the sea level had e ...

are causing problems with sea encroachment in some coastal areas. Fisheries were traditionally some of the richest in China, fed by enormous sediment runoff and extensive shallows to serve as hatcheries. Pollution,

eutrophication Eutrophication is a general term describing a process in which nutrients accumulate in a body of water, resulting in an increased growth of organisms that may deplete the oxygen in the water; ie. the process of too many plants growing on the s ...

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

caused by land reclamation, and intense

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing Fish stocks, fish stock), resu ...

have resulted in a collapse of stocks, and a decline of trawl catch per unit of effort (CPUE) from 138.8 kg/net.hr to 11.2 kg/net.hr from 1959 to 1998. The Bohai Bay is ringed by several major ports: the

Port of Tianjin The Port of Tianjin (''Tianjin Gang'', zh, s=天津港, p=tiānjīn gǎng}), formerly known as the Port of Tanggu, is the largest port in Northern China and the main maritime gateway to Beijing. The name "Tianjin Xingang" ( zh, s=天津新港, ...

, the large Port of Tangshan itself which consists of three ports ( Caofeidian, Jingtang and Fennan), and the

Port of Huanghua The Port of Huanghua, also known as the Port of Cangzhou Huanghua is an artificial deep-water international seaport on the coast of Huanghua, Cangzhou Prefecture, Hebei, People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic ...

, making the Bay into a very crowded waterway. Land reclamation in Tianjin and in Caofeidian have greatly changed the littoral zone, and destroyed much of the area's

wetlands A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

. Land reclamation has also affected migratory birds. As is the case of most of the Bohai Sea, the Bohai Bay is rich in hydrocarbon deposits and has several active offshore

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the prese ...

s. Jidong Nanpu contains , while the bay as a whole is estimated to contain . On June 4, 2011, a large oil spill occurred related to the

China National Offshore Oil Corporation China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC Group (), is the third-largest national oil companies, national oil company in China, after CNPC (parent of PetroChina) and China Petrochemical Corporation (parent of Sinopec). The CNOOC Group ...

Climate

References

See also