Maldives - North Male Atoll

Setting

North Male Atoll is one of the Maldives' central atolls (4.37 N, 73.46 E), the atoll that contains Male and the country's main airport.

Stressors

For context on the wider archipelago rather than this site: Maldivian reefs were hit by basin-wide mass bleaching and mortality in 1998 and again in 2016, and the 2013 figure above predates the 2016 event entirely. The satellite five-year mean annual maximum heat stress for the cell is 2.2 degree heating weeks.

Comparisons with other data

The regional context is thin: master_coral_cover.sqlite holds exactly one independent survey within 10 km, a Reef Check record at Banyan Tree House Reef 8.12 km away, at 33% hard coral cover in 2013. A single station eight kilometers off is background, not a measurement of this site, and with n = 1 there is no spread to judge it against.

Also on record for this site: The nearest is Banyan Tree House Reef at 8.12 km, which recorded 32.8% in 2013.

Other notes

No photographs, coral-cover estimate, or written site account is attached, and nothing sits close enough to describe this reef.