Maldives - South Ari (Maamigili)

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

Country

Maldives

Survey date(s)

—

Coordinates

3.5000, 72.8500

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

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

Three other CRD dive sites 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

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

Stressors

The 2011-2025 window straddles the 2016 Maldives mass-bleaching event, so the eightfold spread in cover likely reflects genuinely different reef states rather than survey error. Satellite five-year mean annual maximum heat stress for the cell: 2.2 degree heating weeks. No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Comparisons with other data

Regional context from master_coral_cover.sqlite: 14 independent Reef Check surveys within 10 km, spanning 2011-2025 and ranging from 7.8% to 62.5% hard coral, averaging 31.0%. The nearest is Holiday Thila, 3.03 km away, at 7.8% in 2017 - and that nearest value is 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, 3.03–3.41 km	Records ↓
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	2015	1 station, 4.06 km	Records ↓

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.

Reef Check XL Catlin Seaview SurveyYear-average (no detectable trend)

Within 5 km, 5 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 18 records between 2011 and 2025. Of the 1 station surveyed in more than one year, 1 increased between their first and latest surveys. The longest record, Holiday Thila (Reef Check, 3.03 km away), went from 13% in 2015 to 28% in 2025. One survey since 2021 recorded 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 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	Holiday Thila South	2011	54% (3 surveys)	3.03 km	—
Reef Check	Holiday Thila North	2011	38% (3 surveys)	3.03 km	—
Reef Check	Maamigili	2011	48% (2 surveys)	3.41 km	—
Reef Check	Holiday Thila	2015–2025	7.8–28% (9 surveys)	3.03 km	—
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	transect 37012	2015	12%	4.06 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.