Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation — Global Reef Expedition
Coral Reef Diagnostics

N. GBR - Blue (AUR514)

Reef Check Foundation
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Part of the regional summaries: Australia (GBR) - Far North: Blue stations (Habitat Protection Zone reefs) and Australia (GBR)

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Country
Australia
Survey date(s)
2014-09-05
Coordinates
-15.3910, 145.7817
Coral cover
48%
Benthic transects+photo-quadrats
Observations
not yet tagged for this site
Heat stress
Today’s heat load
24.8°C0.0°C-weeks
3 Oct 2026 · No heat stress
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
7.8°C-weeksi
2021–2025
NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Northern GBR 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 infoNorthern GBR (NOAA CRW virtual station)
Survey depth (expedition team)
6 m
Living Oceans Foundation (LOF) benthic survey depth; no dive by Anderson at this station
Sea surface temp. (satellite)
24.7°C
satellite sea surface temperature (SST) on the survey date (NOAA Coral Reef Watch, Northern GBR), not an in-water reading; it is the warmest-pixel (90th percentile) reading in the station area and can run 1–1.5°C above the reef

Six independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.

Four other CRD dive sites within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.

🗺 Detailed map of the Global Reef Expedition dive sites, Ribbon Reefs, northern Great Barrier Reef (Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation; opens in a new window)

Site description

Setting

Global Reef Expedition station AUR514 on Ribbon Reef 5, northern Great Barrier Reef (-15.3910, 145.7817), surveyed on 5 September 2014. The site lies in a Habitat Protection (Blue) Zone, where line fishing is permitted.

Coral cover

Comparisons with other data

Coral cover — external cross-reference (Reef Check). Two independent measurements, reported side by side and deliberately not averaged. Global Reef Expedition transects (Living Oceans Foundation): 48% hard coral (2014). Reef Check: 53% at Ribbon Reef #5 southern patch, 1.46 km away (1999, 1 survey). The two are 15 years apart (Global Reef Expedition later). Methods differ (Living Oceans Foundation diver transect vs Reef Check point-intercept transect). Reef Check site positions are approximate; at 1.46 km apart the two surveys may have sampled different patches of the same reef, which is the main caveat on this comparison.

Independent surveys nearby

Data availability near this site
Agency / programYear(s)Stations / distanceLink
Reef Check1999–20083 stations, 1.46–2.08 kmRecords ↓
XL Catlin Seaview Survey2012–20173 stations, 0.05–1.85 kmRecords ↓
Hard coral cover over time — this site and every independent station within 5 km. Programs are shown separately because they use different methods at different stations; the lines are not one comparable series.
0%15%30%45%60%199920082017Reef Check 1999: 53%Reef Check 2004: 43%Reef Check 2005: 47%Reef Check 2006: 44%Reef Check 2007: 41%Reef Check 2008: 49%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 15%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 18%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 38%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2014: 17%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 7.0%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 12%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2017: 9.5%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2017: 11%LOF Global Reef Expedition 2014: 48%Year-averaged across all programs: illustrative only; the programs differ in stations and method, so no trend is claimed (10 years)
Reef Check XL Catlin Seaview Survey LOF Global Reef ExpeditionYear-average (illustrative only, programs differ)

Within 5 km, 6 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 14 surveys between 1999 and 2017. Of the 3 stations surveyed in more than one year, 1 was scored by divers or by people annotating photographs: increased by 1.9 points between its first and latest surveys. The other 2 were scored by automated image analysis: 1 declined by more than 7 points; 1 changed by 7 points or less, inside the 7-point method-noise floor (inconclusive). Two stations share the longest span (2012–2017); one, transect 12036 (XL Catlin Seaview Survey, 0.05 km away), went from 15% in 2012 to 11% in 2017. The most recent nearby survey is from 2017, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (48%) sits within the range of these surveys up to 2 km away (7.0–53%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.

Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects; the XL Catlin Seaview Survey uses photo-transects with automated image annotation), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names.

Independent survey data near this site
AgencySite / locationDateHard coral cover (%)DistanceLink
Reef CheckRibbon Reef #5 southern patch199953%1.46 km—
Reef CheckRibbon Reef 3 - Clam Beds (Back reef slope) Site 1200443%2.08 km—
Reef CheckRibbon Reef 3 - Clam Beds (Back reef slope) Site 12005–200841–49% (4 surveys)1.94 km—
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 120362012–201711–17% (4 surveys)0.05 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 120372012–20177.0–18% (3 surveys)1.63 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 12003201238%1.85 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930

Data & links

Data are from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition, Coral Reef Diagnostics, and the organizations named in the data sources above.

© Coral Reef Diagnostics.