page_title: Estuaries of Texas
section_title: Nueces Estuary
hierarchical_section_title: Estuaries of Texas / Nueces Estuary
caption_attribution_description: English: Corpus Christi, Texas
context_page_description: The U.S. state of Texas has a series of estuaries along its coast on the Gulf of Mexico, most of them bounded by the Texas barrier islands. Estuaries are coastal bodies of water in which freshwater from rivers mixes with saltwater from the sea. Twenty-one drainage basins terminate along the Texas coastline, forming a chain of seven major and five minor estuaries: listed from southwest to northeast, these are the Rio Grande Estuary, Laguna Madre, the Nueces Estuary, the Mission–Aransas Estuary, the Guadalupe Estuary, the Colorado–Lavaca Estuary, East Matagorda Bay, the San Bernard River and Cedar Lakes Estuary, the Brazos River Estuary, Christmas Bay, the Trinity–San Jacinto Estuary, and the Sabine–Neches Estuary. Each estuary is named for its one or two chief contributing rivers, excepting Laguna Madre, East Matagorda Bay, and Christmas Bay, which have no major river sources. The estuaries are also sometimes referred to by the names of their respective primary or central water bodies, though each also includes smaller secondary bays, inlets, or other marginal water bodies.
context_section_description: The Nueces Estuary is located on the Texas Coastal Bend in San Patricio and Nueces Counties, adjoining the city of Corpus Christi. It is fed by the Nueces River and Oso Creek and separated from the Gulf of Mexico by Mustang Island. The Nueces Estuary is the sixth largest of the Texas estuaries, with a surface area of 106,990 acres (43,300 ha) including Corpus Christi Bay and its western and southern extensions in Nueces Bay and Oso Bay. The natural portions have a depth of up to 13 feet (4 m). Smaller settlements around the bay include Portland, Ingleside, and Ingleside on the Bay, all located on the north shore.
  Corpus Christi Bay is a deep-water natural harbor, and the shipping industry in the Port of Corpus Christi has been a major driver of human development in the region. Other significant industries include petroleum and natural gas extraction, tourism, commercial fishing, and military facilities such as Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has designated the Nueces Estuary system as an estuary of national significance under the National Estuary Program.
caption: Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi on Ward Island by the south shore of Corpus Christi Bay
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