Fiji - Tuvuca (FJTV43)

Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation — Global Reef Expedition

Part of the regional summaries: Fiji - Northern Lau (Vanua Balavu / Cicia / Nayau) and Fiji - Lau

Outlier score: 5.00/5 (Tuvuca, n = 8 corals with an outlier score). The share of those corals whose molecular stress profile was an outlier, rescaled to 0-5 (5 = no outliers); an island-level measure (Mayfield et al. 2017), not a Coral Health Index.

Country

Fiji

Survey date(s)

2013-06-17

Coordinates

-17.6935, -178.8325

Coral cover

41%

± 4.6% SE, n = 5 transects · Benthic transects+photo-quadrats

Observations

cyanobacteria

Heat stress

Most recent heat load record

25.8°C 0.0°C-weeks

26 Oct 2026 · No heat stress

5-year thermal stress load

5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)

8.9°C-weeksⁱ

2021–2025

NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Fiji virtual station

i 5-year mean max. DHW is the mean of the annual maximum DHWs over the five complete years named above, not conditions today.

More info

Fiji (NOAA CRW virtual station)

Site summary

Read this summary in:

A station off Tuvuca, a raised limestone island in northern Lau, where the survey team dived to 12.8 m and coral (41%) outweighs algae (34%). The survey team noted more dead tabular acroporids here than at neighboring Tuvuca sites, with older dead skeleton on smaller colonies now covered in algae. Surveyed on the Living Oceans Foundation's Global Reef Expedition.

Max. depth (team dive log)

12.8 m

expedition team log maximum (not Anderson's own dive)

Water temp. during survey

26.8°Cⁱⁱ
CTD-cast midpoint; the cast read 26.8°C throughout

-0.9°C vs the 2013 mean sea temperature (27.7°C)

ii Station CTD-cast midpoint (LOF metadata), not a dive reading: the Living Oceans Foundation station metadata for Fiji give the CTD cast at FJTV43 on 17 June 2013 a maximum of 26.84°C and a minimum of 26.80°C; the value shown, 26.8°C, is their midpoint.

Bottom time

65 min

in at 15:40

Two other CRD dive sites with their own pages within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.

🗺 Detailed map of the Global Reef Expedition dive sites, Tuvuca, Fiji (Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation; opens in a new window)

Site description

Setting

FJTV43 is a station off Tuvuca, a raised limestone island in northern Lau, surveyed on 17 June 2013 during the Global Reef Expedition. The survey team's bottom time was 65 minutes.

General benthic features

Coral and algae together account for about 75% of the transect, leaving a quarter as sand, rubble, soft corals, and other benthos.

Coral cover

Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
An in situ point-count transect (station CTD cast to 21.1 m) recorded 41% live coral cover against 34% total algal cover — coral outweighing algae.
Transect mean 41 ± 4.6% SE (n = 5 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is this all-transect mean.

Stressors

The expedition's own site notes for FJTV43 record more mortality on tabular acroporids than at neighboring Tuvuca stations, with older dead skeleton on smaller colonies since colonized by algae — the survey team's observations, not anything read from imagery at this site. The Living Oceans Foundation transects here recorded 6.2% cyanobacteria and no recently dead coral; they carry no bleaching, disease, or crown-of-thorns field. Recent thermal exposure at the Fiji virtual station averages an annual maximum of 8.9 degree-heating-weeks (NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 2021-2025), above the 8 DHW severe-bleaching level.

Comparisons with other data

Apart from the Living Oceans Foundation survey shown here, we found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

No underwater photographs from this station are on file.

Data & links

Data are from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition, Coral Reef Diagnostics, and NOAA Coral Reef Watch.