Fiji - Vanua Balavu (FJVB58)

Setting

FJVB58 is a Vanua Balavu station in northern Lau, surveyed on 22 June 2013 during the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation's Global Reef Expedition.

Coral cover

• Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
• An in situ point-count transect recorded 13% live coral cover against 83% total algal cover, with algae on roughly seven times the substrate coral held.
• Transect mean 13 ± 3.2% SE (n = 4 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is this all-transect mean.

Stressors

Context, stated as context: the Fiji virtual station has averaged an annual maximum of 8.9 degree-heating-weeks across 2021-2025 (NOAA Coral Reef Watch), above the 8 DHW level at which severe bleaching and mortality are expected, and Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston passed over Vanua Balavu in February 2016 (IBTrACS best track, NOAA NCEI), making these 2013 figures a pre-cyclone baseline. Anderson's sample sheet records two of the three colonies sampled here as partly bleached (F126 5-10%; F127 25%, 'outer sections of branches were bleached'), the third (F128) 'likely healthy'. The Living Oceans Foundation transects here recorded 2.5% cyanobacteria and no recently dead coral.

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.

Dive record

Anderson's dive log records a maximum depth of 12.5 m for this lagoon dive. Bottom time was 47 minutes.

Other notes

Anderson was busy sampling corals at this site, so the site description is derived from the Living Oceans Foundation's benthic transect data. Those transects recorded 13% hard coral cover. The photographs shown for this site are close-ups of the colonies Anderson sampled, so nothing here describes the reef's habitat, structure, or condition from imagery.