Little Massabesic Brook and Sucker Brook form a 1.9 miles (3.1 km) stream

Stream

A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...

 located in southern New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. They are tributaries

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 of Massabesic Lake

Massabesic Lake

Massabesic Lake is a lake in southern New Hampshire, United States, covering about within the city of Manchester and the town of Auburn. Because it provides drinking water for Manchester, swimming and water skiing are not allowed there. Popular sports on the lake are sailing, fishing, kayaking...

, part of the Merrimack River

Merrimack River

The Merrimack River is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into Massachusetts, and then flows northeast until it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Newburyport...

 and Gulf of Maine

Gulf of Maine

The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America.It is delineated by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and Cape Sable at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast. It includes the entire coastlines of the U.S...

 watersheds

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

. Despite the streams' short length, they are subject to the New Hampshire Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act, because of their fourth order stream status (indicating a high number of upstream tributary sets).

Little Massabesic Brook is formed by the confluence of Hook Brook and Preston Brook in Auburn, New Hampshire

Auburn, New Hampshire

Auburn is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 4,953 at the 2010 census. The town was called by WMUR News 9 as number one of "New Hampshire's Most Beautiful Towns" in July 2010. It was also named 18 in The New York Times' "Top 200 Towns To Raise a Family."-...

. The brook flows west, is interrupted by Little Massabesic Lake, then continues west to Clark Pond Brook. At this juncture, the stream changes name to Sucker Brook and flows south, past the village proper of Auburn, and enters Massabesic Lake.