Brunei Bay ( ms, Teluk Brunei) is on the northwestern coast of
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...
island, in
Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...
and
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
.
Brunei Bay is located 5°00'43.44", 115°17'26.66"; east of
Bandar Seri Begawan
Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB; Jawi: بندر سري بڬاوان; ) is the capital city of Brunei. It is officially a municipal area () with an area of and an estimated population of 100,700 as of 2007. It is part of Brunei-Muara District, the s ...
, Brunei.
It is the ocean gateway to the isolated
Temburong District
Temburong District ( ms, Daerah Temburong; Jawi: دائيره تمبوروڠ) or simply Temburong () is the easternmost district in Brunei. It is an exclave — the land is separated from the rest of the country by Malaysia and Brunei Bay, a ...
of Brunei, separated from the rest of Brunei by the Malaysian
Sarawak State surrounding it to the bay.
A roadway connecting the Muara and Temburong districts of Brunei, completed in 2018, crosses over the Brunei bay. The section going across the Brunei bay measures in at .
Environment
Brunei Bay contains some 8,000 ha of tidal
mudflats and sandflats,
seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the or ...
beds,
coral reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.
C ...
s,
mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...
s, beach forest and
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
islets. These have been identified by
BirdLife International as an
Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supports significant numbers of the populations of various bird species, including
Bonaparte's nightjar
Bonaparte's nightjar (''Caprimulgus concretus''), also known as the Sunda nightjar, is a species of nightjar in the family Caprimulgidae. It is found in the islands of Sumatra, Belitung and Borneo. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical ...
s,
lesser adjutant
The lesser adjutant (''Leptoptilos javanicus'') is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. Like other members of its genus, it has a bare neck and head. It is however more closely associated with wetland habitats where it is solitary ...
s,
Storm's storks,
Chinese egret
The Chinese egret or Swinhoe's egret (''Egretta eulophotes'') is a threatened species of egret from east Asia. The species was first described by Robert Swinhoe in 1860.
Description
The Chinese egret averages 68 cm in height. The plumage ...
s,
greater sandplover
The greater sand plover (''Charadrius leschenaultii'') is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as "greater sandplover" or "greater sand-plover", but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "Gre ...
s,
spotted greenshank
Nordmann's greenshank (''Tringa guttifer'') or the spotted greenshank, is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae, the typical waders.
Description
The Nordmann's greenshank is a medium-sized sandpiper, at long, with a slightly upturned, bicol ...
s and
roseate terns. Threats include inshore
trawling
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different spec ...
,
waterbird
A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...
hunting, and
habitat fragmentation through mangrove clearance.
[ ]
References
Other sources
* Caldecott (1987); Currie (1979a, 1979b, 1980 & 1982); Farmer (1986); Farmer et al. (1986); Howes & Sahat (in prep); Karpowicz (1985); Lindley (1982); Sahat (1987); Teng (1970 & 1971); UGL Consultants Ltd (1983).
* John R. Howes, Mohammad Jaya bin Haji Sahat and Euan G. Ross.
Bays of Brunei
Bays of Malaysia
Landforms of Sarawak
Temburong District
Brunei–Malaysia border
Important Bird Areas of Brunei
{{coord, 5, 05, N, 115, 18, E, region:BN_type:waterbody, display=title