Coral Reef Diagnostics

Saudi Red Sea - unnamed site 1 (Al Qunfudah)

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Part of the regional summaries: Saudi Arabia and Red Sea

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Photo: Anderson Mayfield/Coral Reef Diagnostics
Country
Saudi Arabia
Survey date(s)
2024-08-30
Coordinates
19.1000, 40.6600
Coral cover
16%
Point-intercept photo analysis (CoralNet)
Observations
bleaching
Heat stress
Today’s heat load
33.4°C3.6°C-weeks
16 Sep 2026 · Bleaching Warning
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
14.3°C-weeksi
2021–2025
NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Makkah-Madine Saudi Arabia 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 infoMakkah-Madine Saudi Arabia (NOAA CRW virtual station) · Southern Red Sea ecoregion mean=8.7°C-heating weeks
Photographs
9
Site summary
Read this summary in:

This unnamed reef off Al Qunfudah, in southern Saudi Arabia, is an old, structurally complex framework carrying only a thin living skin of coral - mostly shingled plating and foliose corals with pale, freshly bleached leading margins, plus a few clean table and staghorn Acropora. Published cover is a modest 16.4%, with 13.8% of coral tissue bleached despite the highest accumulated heat stress (20.4 DHW) of any site in this Red Sea set.

Water temp. during survey
31.5°C
+0.8°C vs the 2024 mean sea temperature (30.7°C)

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

Photo credit & attribution

Site description

Setting

An unnamed reef off Al Qunfudah on the southern Saudi Red Sea coast, surveyed 30 August 2024 in partnership with Al Qunfudah Diver during the 2023-24 bleaching event. On the seaward side the terrace ends abruptly at a steep, coral-studded drop-off into blue water (e.g., Image 3).

3Image 3

General benthic features

The reef reads as an old, structurally complex framework carrying a thin living skin: consolidated rock and coralline-crusted rubble, sponges and red encrusting algae, with living colonies scattered rather than continuous (e.g., Image 4, Image 5, Image 8).

4Image 45Image 58Image 8

Plating and foliose corals stacked in shingled tiers are the commonest live form, many of them with pale, freshly bleached leading margins; broad low domes, knobby massives, and a few clean table and staghorn Acropora colonies fill in around them, and a solitary mushroom coral sits loose on the rubble (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 6, Image 7, Image 9).

1Image 12Image 26Image 67Image 79Image 9

Coral cover

Published CoralNet point counts give 16% total coral cover (bleached included) against 9% algae, with 13.8% of coral tissue bleached at about 20.4 degree-heating-weeks. That is a manual point count from Anderson's own published work, not a computer vision estimate. Also on record for this site: It carries the provenance of the paper it appears in and is not subject to the CoralSCOP/DINOv3 caveats applied elsewhere on this map.

Stressors

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

Fish and other fauna

Fish are present but sparse in frame - a few snapper, a butterflyfish, and small damselfish.

Comparisons with other data

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

Data & links

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

© Coral Reef Diagnostics.