A shallow, island-studded ria harbour on the Dorset coast, recognised internationally for its wetland wildlife.
Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour on the coast of Dorset in southern England, fringing the town of Poole and opening eastwards into the English Channel. It was formed by the flooding of a river valley at the end of the last ice age, when rising seas drowned the lower Frome valley and its tributaries to create a wide, shallow estuary system. The harbour is around 36 square kilometres in extent, extremely shallow on average, and studded with several islands, the largest of which is Brownsea Island near the harbour mouth.
The harbour is most notable for its ecological value rather than its maritime scale. Its intertidal mudflats, salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and fringing heathlands support internationally important numbers of wintering and breeding waterbirds, and the islands are a refuge for red squirrels. As a Ramsar-designated wetland and a focus for conservation management alongside several national and local nature reserves, Poole Harbour functions as much as a living landscape as it does a working harbour, balancing continuing ferry traffic, fishing, and recreational boating with active protection of its wildlife habitats.
