Maldives - South Ari (Maamigili)

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

Country

Maldives

Date(s) visited

2017-05-23
2017-05-24
2017-05-25

Coordinates

3.5000, 72.8500

Approximate position.

Coral cover

—

not yet measured

Observations

None tagged; see Stressors below

Heat stress

Most recent heat load record

30.1°C 0.0°C-weeks

26 Oct 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)

Site summary

Read this summary in:

A pin off Maamigili at the southern end of Ari Atoll, with no photographs or survey of its own. Fourteen Reef Check station-year means within 10 km (2011-2025) range eightfold, from 7.8% to 63% coral cover, straddling the 2016 mass bleaching, so no single nearby number represents this reef.

Sea surface temp. (satellite)

29.6°C
mean; range 29.6–29.7°C

satellite sea surface temperature (SST), mean of the 3 trip dates (NOAA Coral Reef Watch, Maldives), 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

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

One other CRD dive site with its own page within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.

Site description

Setting

This site sits off Maamigili at the southern end of Ari Atoll, in the central-western Maldives (3.50 N, 72.85 E).

Coral cover

This area marker carries no photographs or cover figure of its own: our southern Ari Atoll dives of 23-25 May 2017 are on their own site pins (listed on the Ari Atoll marker), and no survey sits close enough to describe this reef.

Stressors

The 2011-2025 window straddles the 2016 Maldives mass-bleaching event. Satellite five-year mean annual maximum heat stress at NOAA Coral Reef Watch's Maldives virtual station: 2.2 degree heating weeks.

Comparisons with other data

Regional context: 14 independent Reef Check station-year records within 10 km (28 surveys at nine stations), spanning 2011-2025 and ranging from 7.8% to 63% hard coral, averaging 31%. The nearest is Holiday Thila, 3.02 km away, at 28% in 2025; it read 7.8% in 2017, the minimum of the whole set, which is a useful caution against reading any single nearby number as representative.

Independent surveys nearby

Data availability near this site
Agency / program	Year(s)	Stations / distance	Link
Reef Check	2011–2025	4 stations, 3.02–3.41 km	Records ↓
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	2015	1 station, 4.06 km	Records ↓

Hard coral cover over time — 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.

Reef Check XL Catlin Seaview SurveyYear-average (illustrative only, programs differ)

Within 5 km, 5 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 18 surveys between 2011 and 2025. The one station surveyed in more than one year increased by 15 points between its first and latest surveys. The longest record, Holiday Thila (Reef Check, 3.02 km away), went from 13% in 2015 (mean of 2 surveys) to 28% in 2025 (mean of 2 surveys). One station-year since 2021 (2 surveys) averaged 28%.

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
Agency	Site / location	Date	Hard coral cover (%)	Distance	Link
Reef Check	Holiday Thila South	2011	54%, mean of 3 surveys (5 m, 8 m, and 12 m)	3.03 km	—
Reef Check	Holiday Thila North	2011	38%, mean of 3 surveys (5 m, 8 m, and 12 m)	3.03 km	—
Reef Check	Maamigili	2011	48%, mean of 2 surveys (8 m and 10 m)	3.41 km	—
Reef Check	Holiday Thila	2015–2025	7.8–28% (range of yearly means; 9 surveys)	3.02 km	—
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	transect 37012	2015	12%	4.06 km	doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930

Data & links

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