Waters and hydrographic features

Baie d'Ad-Dakhla

Baie d'Ad-Dakhla (Dakhla Bay) is a 37 km Ramsar wetland (site 1470, 2005) on Morocco's Atlantic Sahara, the country's second most important waterbird wintering site, with Zostera noltii beds and over 120 mollusc species.

Baker (lake)

Baker Lake (Qamani'tuaq, "where the river widens") is a large Arctic lake in Nunavut's Kivalliq Region at the mouth of the Thelon River, near Canada's geographic centre; named in 1761 after HBC governor Sir William Baker, it hosts Nunavut's only inland Inuit community.

Balak

Balak: a river and sub-basin in Erbil governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan, 10 km east of Bekhal Waterfall, with five tributaries and Ca-HCO3 water; also villages in Haryana and Syunik, Malaysian streams, and the similar Balkhab river of Afghanistan.

Bali Sea

Bali Sea: IHO-delimited sea (1953 S-23, MRGID 4340) of the Pacific Ocean north of Bali Island, Indonesia; 39,916 km², over the Bali Basin deepening from 200 m to 1,300 m toward Lombok Strait; Sunda Arc tectonics, sardine fisheries.

Bali Strait

Bali Strait (Selat Bali): 80-km strait between Java and Bali linking the Indian Ocean and Java Sea; funnel-shaped, mixed tides, strong currents, Ketapang–Gilimanuk ferry crossing, fisheries, and tidal-energy potential.

Balkash - Alakul

Balkash - Alakul (FEOW ecoregion 624) is the endorheic freshwater ecoregion of lakes Balkhash, Sasykkol, and Alakol in Kazakhstan, China, and Kyrgyzstan, defined by endemic fish such as Balkhash perch and marinka now threatened by introduced species.

Balkhash

Lake Balkhash (Balkash) is Kazakhstan's large endorheic lake, Central Asia's largest at about 17,000 km2, fresh in the west and saline in the east, fed mainly by the Ili River and threatened by upstream water use.

Ballard

Ballard: primarily Lake Ballard, a 60-km intermittent hypersaline salt lake near Menzies, Western Australia, home of Gormley's 51 'Inside Australia' sculptures; also a Seattle neighborhood, a Wisconsin lake, and a Kentucky wildlife area.

Ballynahone Bog

Ballynahone Bog is a lowland raised bog near Maghera in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, protected as a Special Area of Conservation, Ramsar site, and National Nature Reserve.

Balsas

Balsas (Río Balsas), Mexico's largest Pacific-coast river, called Atoyac upstream and Mezcala mid-course; drains 117,405 km² across eight states, dammed by El Caracol, Infiernillo, and La Villita hydroelectric dams.

Baltic Ice Lake

Baltic Ice Lake, a large ice-dammed freshwater lake filling the Baltic basin during the last deglaciation, drained catastrophically about 25 m through central Sweden before the Yoldia Sea formed.

Baltic Sea (Балтийское море)

Baltic Sea (Балтийское море): shallow, semi-enclosed brackish sea in northern Europe, 420,000 km², max depth 459 m, salinity 0–18 psu, slow 30-year water exchange, severe eutrophication and hypoxia.

Banda Sea

The Banda Sea is a large, deep tropical sea in eastern Indonesia, lying within the Banda Arc and covering about 470,000 square kilometers, with depths near 7,500 m.

Banda Sea Plate

The Banda Sea Plate is a small oceanic microplate beneath the Banda Sea in eastern Indonesia, ringed by a 2,200 km subduction zone and shaken by deep earthquakes.

Banff Upper Hot Springs

Banff Upper Hot Springs is a Parks Canada-operated mineral pool on Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park, Alberta, held at 37–40 °C. Canada's highest outdoor pool, first developed in 1886, with its 1932 heritage bathhouse restored in 1996.

Bangweulu

Bangweulu, "where the water meets the sky," is a Zambian wetland system of Lake Bangweulu, swamps, and floodplains in the upper Congo basin, drained by the Luapula River, home to the endemic black lechwe and shoebill, a Ramsar site co-managed since 2008.

Bangweulu - Mweru

Bangweulu - Mweru is a freshwater ecoregion covering the lakes and swamps of the Bangweulu and Mweru systems in southeastern DRC and northeastern Zambia, with rich endemic fauna.

Bangweulu Swamps

The Bangweulu Swamps, meaning "where the water meets the sky," are permanent swamps and seasonally flooded grasslands in northeastern Zambia, home to the endangered black lechwe.

Oct 15, 2026

Bank erosion

Bank erosion is the retreat of a stream or river bank as the channel widens or migrates laterally, the counterpart to lowering of the stream bed in fluvial erosion.

Baoulé

Baoulé names several West African rivers, chiefly a Niger-basin tributary rising in Côte d'Ivoire that forms the Bani with the Bagoé, a Bakoye tributary in Mali, plus the Baoulé people and V Baoulé region of Côte d'Ivoire.

Barclay Bay

Barclay Bay, also recorded as Barclay's Bay (variant not adopted), is a bay between Cape Shirreff and Start Point on the north side of Livingston Island, Antarctica, at 62°33′S 060°58′W.

Barents Sea

The Barents Sea, named for navigator Willem Barentsz, is a 1.6-million-km2 Arctic shelf sea north of Norway and Russia, averaging 230 m deep, warmed by Atlantic inflow, highly productive, and jointly fished and managed by Norway and Russia.

Barents Sea Drainages

Barents Sea Drainages is a freshwater ecoregion, number 407 in the Freshwater Ecoregions of the World catalog, covering rivers draining into the Barents, White, and Kara Seas.

Barilari Bay

Barilari Bay (Bahía Barilari) is a glacier-marine fjord on the Graham Coast of the west Antarctic Peninsula at 65°55′S 64°43′W, named for Argentine admiral Atilio Barilari, with five tidewater glaciers and warm deep-water intrusions.

Barito

Barito (Sungai Barito) is a river in Indonesian Borneo about 900 km long that rises in the Schwaner Muller Mountains and flows to the Java Sea at Muara Banjar.

Barlee

Lake Barlee is a large intermittent salt lake in the Mid West of Western Australia; at about 1,980 square kilometers it is the state's second largest lake and fills roughly once a decade.

Barrage de Samandéni

Barrage de Samandéni (Samendeni dam): multipurpose dam on the Mouhoun river, Bama, Burkina Faso; 1.05 billion m³ capacity, third largest after Kompienga and Bagré; filled 2017, inaugurated 2019, Ramsar Site 2439.

Bass Strait

Bass Strait is the sea passage between Victoria and Tasmania, over 65,000 km2 in area, discovered by George Bass and Matthew Flinders in 1798 and named after Bass; it holds major oil, gas, and offshore wind resources.

Bass Strait Drainages

Bass Strait Drainages, FEOW freshwater ecoregion 809 by Peter Unmack: rivers of northern Tasmania and the Victorian coast draining to Bass Strait, 105,000 km², three endemic fish, united by a glacial land bridge.