Coral Reef Diagnostics

Philippines - Port Barton, Palawan: Reef 1 (bay snorkel)

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Part of the regional summaries: Philippines - Palawan and Philippines

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Photo: Anderson Mayfield/Coral Reef Diagnostics
Country
Philippines
Survey date(s)
2017-01-20
Coordinates
10.4480, 119.2160
Approximate position: no GPS fix was logged for this dive.
Coral cover
39%
Computer vision · details below
Observations
not yet tagged for this site
Heat stress
Today’s heat load
30.6°C1.1°C-weeks
16 Sep 2026 · Bleaching Warning
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
3.2°C-weeksi
2021–2025
NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Western Philippines 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 infoWestern Philippines (NOAA CRW virtual station) · Palawan/North Borneo ecoregion mean=4.0°C-heating weeks
Photographs
8
Site summary

Reef 1 is a shallow bay snorkel site near Port Barton town with a visibly mixed condition - one frame captioned pollution damaged reef beside another labeled unharmed patch - and staghorn thickets showing active juvenile recruitment alongside standing dead branches. Cover estimates disagree substantially, roughly 29-48%.

Water temp. during survey
27.2°C
-2.0°C vs the 2017 mean sea temperature (29.2°C)

Two other CRD dive sites within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.

Photo credit & attribution

Site description

Setting

A shallow inshore snorkel site in the bay near Port Barton town, logged as "Reef 1" and snorkeled 2017-01-20 (08:54-09:00) ahead of the day's dives.

General benthic features

Staghorn and Pocillopora thickets carry active juvenile recruitment alongside a visibly mixed-condition fringing reef -- one frame captioned "pollution damaged reef" sits beside another labeled "unharmed patch", a contrast consistent with the site's proximity to town (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 5, Image 6, Image 7, Image 8).

1Image 12Image 25Image 56Image 67Image 78Image 8

Coral cover

This 8-frame set produced the largest CV method disagreement anywhere in the Palawan collection: DINOv3 reads 29.1% coral cover, CoralSCOP computer vision 47.8% -- an 18.7-point spread. The frames explain why: much of the reef is standing dead branching Acropora carrying a turf-algae coat, and CoralSCOP's computer vision counts that dead framework as coral (93.9% on the close-range "Hydnophora" frame, 82.7% on "unharmed patch") (e.g., Image 3, Image 4).

3Image 34Image 4

With only 8 frames, DINOv3's own normal-approximation interval is wide (roughly 21-38%). This CoralSCOP and DINOv3 estimate is a placeholder while Anderson searches for a stronger coral-cover model; expect it to be updated if he finds one.

Stressors

No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Comparisons with other data

No prior survey data from this site. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

CV model comparison

DINOv3 29%, CoralSCOP 48%; 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 18.7 pp — treat the published figure as a range (29–48%), not a point estimate.
More infoThe published figure is the mean of the two methods.
MethodHard-coral cover (%)
In-house DINOv329.1
CoralSCOP47.8
Mean (± SD)38.5 ± 13
Range29.1–47.8

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

Data & links

All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics.

© Coral Reef Diagnostics.