Maldives - North Ari Atoll

Part of the regional summaries: Maldives - Central (Male Atolls / Ari / Vaavu) and Maldives

Country

Maldives

Survey date(s)

—

Coordinates

4.1000, 72.8200

Coral cover

—

not yet measured

Observations

bleaching

Heat stress

Today’s heat load

29.7°C 0.0°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 info

Maldives (NOAA CRW virtual station) · Maldives ecoregion mean=2.9°C-heating weeks

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

Site description

Setting

This site marks the northern end of Ari Atoll in the central-western Maldives (4.10 N, 72.82 E).

Stressors

As archipelago context and not an observation here, Maldivian reefs sustained heavy mortality in the 1998 and 2016 mass-bleaching events; the 2016 event falls inside this 2006-2025 survey window, while 1998 predates every record here. Satellite five-year mean annual maximum heat stress for the grid cell: 2.2 degree heating weeks.

Comparisons with other data

Regional context from master_coral_cover.sqlite: nine independent Reef Check surveys within 10 km, spanning 2006-2025, ranging from 1.9% to 44.4% hard coral and averaging 22.9%. The nearest is Maaya Thila, 4.78 km away, at 5.6% in 2006. Both the nearest value and the set minimum sit in single digits, which is worth stating plainly: whatever the reef at this site looks like, the surrounding-area record includes some very low-cover stations.

Other notes

No photographs, coral-cover estimate, or written site account is attached, and no survey sits close enough to describe this reef.

Independent surveys nearby

Within 5 km, 1 independent survey station recorded hard coral cover in 2006. The most recent nearby survey is from 2006, so these values predate recent heat stress.

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
Agency	Site / location	Date	Hard coral cover (%)	Distance	Link
Reef Check	Maaya Thila	2006	5.6%	4.78 km	—

Data & links

Data on this page are from the organizations named in the data-sources table above, not Coral Reef Diagnostics; Coral Reef Diagnostics has no survey of its own at this site.