Coral Reef Diagnostics

Maldives - Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru

Reef Check Foundation
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Part of the regional summaries: Maldives - North (Haa Alif to Baa / Lhaviyani) and Maldives

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Photo: Anderson Mayfield/Coral Reef Diagnostics
Country
Maldives
Survey date(s)
2016-01-24
Coordinates
5.2864, 73.1150
Coral cover
37%
Computer vision (20 photos) · details below
Observations
not yet tagged for this site
Heat stress
Today’s heat load
29.7°C0.0°C-weeks
16 Sep 2026 · Bleaching Watch
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
2.2°C-weeksi
2021–2025
NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Maldives 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 infoMaldives (NOAA CRW virtual station) · Maldives ecoregion mean=2.9°C-heating weeks
Photographs
25
Site summary

An unbroken carpet of staghorn and tabletop corals off Landaa Giraavaru, dense enough to hide a diver's shadow, photographed three months before the 2016 El Nino turned Baa Atoll's reefs bone-white. Computer vision cover estimate is 30-45%, averaging 37.1%.

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

7 of these 25 photographs are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.

345679101112141516171819222324

Photo credit & attribution

Site description

General benthic features

Some reefs have coral gardens; this one is a coral continent. Off Landaa Giraavaru in January 2016, the bottom disappears under an unbroken carpet of staghorn and tabletop corals — thickets dense enough to swallow your shadow, tables a meter wide stacked in tiers, one growing like a bonsai from the crown of a massive dome coral (e.g., Image 2, Image 8, Image 13, Image 20).

2Image 28Image 813Image 1320Image 20

Look closely and you'll find daisy-like polyps waving from a coral head like a field of tiny anemones (e.g., Image 21).

21Image 21

Coral cover

Coral cover: 37% — photo-derived, and the two methods disagree by 15.2 pp; treat cover as a range (30–45%). This site's figure is the mean of two independent computer vision passes over Anderson's own frames: a DINOv3 calibrated point classifier reads 29.5% and a CoralSCOP computer vision reads 44.7%, a spread of 15.2 percentage points. The map publishes the mean so sites can be sorted against one another, but the honest statement of what is known here is the 30–45% range: the two products have different denominators and should not be treated as one measurement.

Stressors

Taken three months before the 2016 El Niño turned Baa Atoll's reefs bone-white, these photos preserve a coral empire at its zenith. No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

Humbug damselfish hang in dithering columns over the branches, ducking in as one when anything looms; blue chromis scatter like confetti over the thicket tops; powder-blue tangs cruise the lanes between tables; and a spotted grouper keeps watch from a table's shade (e.g., Image 1, Image 25).

1Image 125Image 25

Comparisons with other data

No independent survey was made at this exact site; the nearest ones are listed in the table below.

CV model comparison

DINOv3 30%, CoralSCOP 45%; the headline is their mean.
More infoAs of September 2026 no computer-vision method estimates coral cover accurately on new images, so treat this as indicative rather than a measurement; it is revised as the methods improve.
The two methods disagree by 15.2 pp — treat the published figure as a range (30–45%), not a point estimate.
More infoThe published figure is the mean of the two methods.
MethodHard-coral cover (%)
In-house DINOv329.5
CoralSCOP44.7
Mean (± SD)37.1 ± 11
Range29.5–44.7

Mean ± SD and range are across the computer-vision methods shown.

Independent surveys nearby

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%12%24%36%48%200720112016Reef Check 2007: 10%Reef Check 2007: 21%Reef Check 2007: 25%Reef Check 2007: 27%Reef Check 2008: 16%Reef Check 2008: 36%Reef Check 2008: 44%Reef Check 2008: 48%Reef Check 2009: 21%Reef Check 2009: 29%Reef Check 2009: 32%Reef Check 2009: 40%Dr. Coral (CRD) 2016: 37%Year-averaged across all programs: no detectable trend (+1.16 pp per year, not separable from zero; 4 years)
Reef Check Dr. Coral (CRD)Year-average (no detectable trend)

Within 5 km, 4 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 28 surveys between 2007 and 2009. Of the 4 stations surveyed in more than one year, 3 increased and 1 changed by less than 5 percentage points between their first and latest surveys. The longest record, LGT4 (Reef Check, 0.18 km away), went from 10% in 2007 to 21% in 2009. The most recent nearby survey is from 2009, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (37%) sits within the range of these surveys (10–48%); 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), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once the range is shown. Station names are not dive-site names.

Independent survey data near this site
AgencySite / locationDateHard coral cover (%)DistanceLink
Reef CheckLGT42007–200910–21% (7 surveys)0.18 km—
Reef CheckLGT32007–200921–36% (7 surveys)0.21 km—
Reef CheckLGT22007–200925–48% (7 surveys)0.25 km—
Reef CheckLGT12007–200927–44% (7 surveys)0.27 km—

Data & links

All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data-sources table above.

© Coral Reef Diagnostics.