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

N. GBR - Green (AUYG38)

Australian Institute of Marine Science
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Part of the regional summaries: Australia (GBR) - Far North: Green stations (no-take reefs) and Australia (GBR)

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Country
Australia
Survey date(s)
2014-09-09
Coordinates
-14.5837, 145.6303
Coral cover
57%
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)
7.3 m
Living Oceans Foundation (LOF) benthic survey depth; no dive by Anderson at this station
Sea surface temp. (satellite)
24.8°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

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

Six 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, Yonge, Hicks, and Carter Reefs, northern Great Barrier Reef (Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation; opens in a new window)

Site description

Setting

Global Reef Expedition station AUYG38 on Yonge Reef, northern Great Barrier Reef (-14.5837, 145.6303), surveyed on 9 September 2014. The expedition surveyed Yonge Reef as one of its Green (no-take) reefs; under the GBRMPA Zoning Plan the reef is a Scientific Research Zone (no-take, research by permit) with a Conservation Park Zone on its lee side, and the recorded position lies in the adjoining Buffer Zone, about 50 m outside the Scientific Research Zone boundary.

Coral cover

Stressors

Regional context, not an observation here: surveyed about eighteen months before the 2016 mass bleaching, an event that severely bleached hundreds of reefs on the northern Great Barrier Reef (Hughes et al. 2017); 5-year mean annual maximum thermal stress at the Northern GBR virtual station is 7.8 degree heating weeks.

Comparisons with other data

No other surveys have been conducted at this site to date. Within 5 km, eight independent stations recorded 3.9–66% hard coral cover between 1993 and 2023; the nearest, XL Catlin Seaview Survey at transect 12028, 0.68 km away, read 8.6–24% between 2012 and 2017.

Independent surveys nearby

Data availability near this site
Agency / programYear(s)Stations / distanceLink
AIMS LTMP1993–20223 stations, 0.84–1.99 kmRecords ↓
AIMS manta tow1993–20231 station, 1.90 kmRecords ↓
Reef Check20031 station, 2.57 kmRecords ↓
XL Catlin Seaview Survey2012–20173 stations, 0.68–4.50 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%17%34%51%68%199320082023AIMS LTMP 1993: 7.6%AIMS LTMP 1993: 12%AIMS LTMP 1993: 15%AIMS LTMP 1994: 16%AIMS LTMP 1994: 20%AIMS LTMP 1994: 23%AIMS LTMP 1995: 25%AIMS LTMP 1995: 28%AIMS LTMP 1995: 28%AIMS LTMP 1996: 29%AIMS LTMP 1996: 34%AIMS LTMP 1996: 36%AIMS LTMP 1997: 38%AIMS LTMP 1997: 45%AIMS LTMP 1997: 47%AIMS LTMP 1998: 44%AIMS LTMP 1998: 59%AIMS LTMP 1998: 60%AIMS LTMP 1999: 47%AIMS LTMP 1999: 58%AIMS LTMP 1999: 58%AIMS LTMP 2000: 51%AIMS LTMP 2000: 58%AIMS LTMP 2000: 64%AIMS LTMP 2001: 55%AIMS LTMP 2001: 63%AIMS LTMP 2001: 66%AIMS LTMP 2002: 51%AIMS LTMP 2002: 58%AIMS LTMP 2002: 62%AIMS LTMP 2003: 51%AIMS LTMP 2003: 62%AIMS LTMP 2003: 64%AIMS LTMP 2004: 44%AIMS LTMP 2004: 50%AIMS LTMP 2004: 51%AIMS LTMP 2006: 23%AIMS LTMP 2006: 27%AIMS LTMP 2008: 31%AIMS LTMP 2008: 31%AIMS LTMP 2008: 38%AIMS LTMP 2010: 36%AIMS LTMP 2010: 43%AIMS LTMP 2010: 44%AIMS LTMP 2012: 17%AIMS LTMP 2012: 25%AIMS LTMP 2014: 13%AIMS LTMP 2014: 18%AIMS LTMP 2014: 23%AIMS LTMP 2016: 3.9%AIMS LTMP 2016: 8.2%AIMS LTMP 2016: 9.6%AIMS LTMP 2018: 7.2%AIMS LTMP 2018: 13%AIMS LTMP 2018: 18%AIMS LTMP 2020: 17%AIMS LTMP 2020: 22%AIMS LTMP 2020: 25%AIMS LTMP 2021: 29%AIMS LTMP 2021: 30%AIMS LTMP 2021: 31%AIMS LTMP 2022: 29%AIMS LTMP 2022: 31%AIMS LTMP 2022: 34%AIMS manta tow 1993: 14%AIMS manta tow 1994: 17%AIMS manta tow 1995: 23%AIMS manta tow 1996: 18%AIMS manta tow 1997: 25%AIMS manta tow 1998: 30%AIMS manta tow 1999: 30%AIMS manta tow 2000: 29%AIMS manta tow 2001: 30%AIMS manta tow 2002: 27%AIMS manta tow 2003: 26%AIMS manta tow 2004: 24%AIMS manta tow 2005: 34%AIMS manta tow 2006: 18%AIMS manta tow 2007: 15%AIMS manta tow 2008: 18%AIMS manta tow 2009: 17%AIMS manta tow 2011: 15%AIMS manta tow 2013: 13%AIMS manta tow 2015: 9.2%AIMS manta tow 2017: 5.5%AIMS manta tow 2019: 12%AIMS manta tow 2021: 19%AIMS manta tow 2022: 29%AIMS manta tow 2023: 35%Reef Check 2003: 24%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 17%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 24%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2014: 7.7%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2014: 8.7%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2014: 16%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 5.1%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 6.4%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 11%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2017: 4.3%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2017: 5.9%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2017: 8.6%LOF Global Reef Expedition 2014: 57%Year-averaged across all programs: illustrative only; the programs differ in stations and method, so no trend is claimed (31 years)
AIMS LTMP AIMS manta tow Reef Check XL Catlin Seaview Survey LOF Global Reef ExpeditionYear-average (illustrative only, programs differ)

Within 5 km, 8 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 106 surveys between 1993 and 2023. Of the 7 stations surveyed in more than one year, 4 were scored by divers or by people annotating photographs: 4 increased (by 16.9–23.3 points) between their first and latest surveys. The other 3 were scored by automated image analysis: 2 declined by more than 7 points; 1 changed by 7 points or less, inside the 7-point method-noise floor (inconclusive). The longest record, YONGE REEF (AIMS manta tow, 1.90 km away), went from 14% in 1993 to 35% in 2023. Since 2021, station-year means average 30% (range 19–35%; n = 9 station-years from 9 surveys). This site's own estimate (57%) sits 21 points above the recent range up to 2 km away (19–35%); 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; AIMS manta tow is a towed visual estimate in categorical bins; AIMS LTMP uses fixed photo-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
AIMS LTMPYONGE REEF site 31993–20223.9–55% (range of yearly means; 23 surveys)0.84 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
AIMS LTMPYONGE REEF site 21993–20227.6–64% (range of yearly means; 23 surveys)1.50 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
AIMS manta towYONGE REEF1993–20235.5–35% (25 surveys)1.90 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09b0abf315a
AIMS LTMPYONGE REEF site 11993–20229.6–66% (range of yearly means; 23 surveys)1.99 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
Reef CheckPixie Reef Ribbon #3200324%2.57 km—
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 120282012–20178.6–24% (4 surveys)0.68 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 120052012–20175.9–17% (4 surveys)2.04 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 120042014–20174.3–7.7% (3 surveys)4.50 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.