Coral Reef Diagnostics

Taiwan - Lanyu (Orchid Island): Yeyou

Reef Check Foundation
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Part of the regional summaries: Taiwan (mainland + offshore islands) and Taiwan

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Country
Taiwan
Date(s) visited
2008-07-13
2008-09-20
2008-09-21
Coordinates
22.0483, 121.5075
Approximate position.
Coral cover
—
not yet measured
Observations
None tagged; see Stressors below
Heat stress
Most recent heat load record
28.5°C0.8°C-weeks
26 Oct 2026 · Bleaching Watch
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
12.6°C-weeksi
2021–2025
NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Southern Taiwan 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 infoSouthern Taiwan (NOAA CRW virtual station)
Site summary
Read this summary in:

Four 2008 dives off Yeyou logged incredible coral diversity on a 20 m ledge, sea snakes, and strong current on one dive; no cover was measured on these dives, though Reef Check surveyed this site in 2009 and recorded 28% hard coral.

Max. depth dived
35.1 m
Sea surface temp. (satellite)
29.2°C
mean; range 29.0–29.4°C
satellite sea surface temperature (SST), mean of the 3 survey dates (NOAA Coral Reef Watch, Southern Taiwan), 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

Fourteen 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

Coral cover

Stressors

Anderson's dive log for the four dives off Yeyou (13 July and 20-21 September 2008) records no bleaching, disease, crown-of-thorns starfish, or other stressor; on 20 September it notes beautiful healthy coral as far as the eye could see.

Comparisons with other data

Reef Check surveyed this site (its Yeyou station, 0.00 km from the pin) in 2009 and recorded 28% hard coral cover; ten surveys at five stations inside 2 km (two of them named Yeyou) span 14–50% between 2009 and 2016. That survey is another organization's transect, made the year after these dives; Coral Reef Diagnostics measured no cover here.

Dive record

Four dives off Yeyou on Lanyu across 13 July and 20-21 September 2008, to maximum depths of 35.1, 25.9, 21.6 and 12.2 m. The logs record a ledge at 20 m with incredible coral diversity, sea snakes, and many fish, perfect visibility on 20 September, and on 21 September a current strong enough that most of the dive was spent clinging on and looking for small creatures.

No underwater photographs from this site are on file.

Independent surveys nearby

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.
0%17%34%51%68%199820082019Reef Check 1998: 6.3%Reef Check 1998: 8.8%Reef Check 2009: 11%Reef Check 2009: 14%Reef Check 2009: 28%Reef Check 2010: 48%Reef Check 2014: 24%Reef Check 2014: 50%Reef Check 2015: 46%Reef Check 2015: 57%Reef Check 2016: 20%Reef Check 2016: 20%Reef Check 2016: 67%Reef Check 2017: 50%Reef Check 2018: 49%Reef Check 2019: 48%Year-averaged across all programs: increasing (+2.03 pp per year; 9 years)
Reef CheckYear-average (increasing)

Within 5 km, 14 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 31 surveys between 1998 and 2019. The one station surveyed in more than one year declined by 2.0 points between its first and latest surveys. The longest record, Beauty Rock (Reef Check, 2.39 km away), went from 50% in 2017 (mean of 2 surveys) to 48% in 2019 (mean of 2 surveys). The most recent nearby survey is from 2019, so these values predate recent heat stress.

Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects), 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.

Show all 31 independent surveys
Independent survey data near this site
AgencySite / locationDateHard coral cover (%)Distance
Reef CheckHongtoe19988.8%3.07 km
Reef CheckGeeChang19986.3%, mean of 2 surveys (3 m and 10 m)3.71 km
Reef CheckYeyou200928%, mean of 2 surveys (3 m and 6 m)0.00 km
Reef CheckTudigong Temple200914%, mean of 2 surveys (3 m and 6 m)1.41 km
Reef CheckReef Outside Airport200911%, mean of 2 surveys (3 m and 6 m)4.43 km
Reef CheckVirgin Rock201048%, mean of 2 surveys (3 m and 10 m)4.78 km
Reef CheckYeyou Harbor201424%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 10 m)0.47 km
Reef CheckHutoupo201450%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 10 m)1.58 km
Reef CheckMaiden Rock201557%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 10 m)3.92 km
Reef CheckLangdao Harbor201546%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 10 m)4.31 km
Reef CheckYeyou201620%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 10 m)1.86 km
Reef CheckLand Temple/Earth God Temple201620%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 10 m)2.47 km
Reef CheckBeauty Rock201667%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 10 m)3.89 km
Reef CheckBeauty Rock2017–201948–50% (range of yearly means; 6 surveys)2.39 km

Data & links

Data on this page are from Coral Reef Diagnostics (the dive record) and the organizations named in the data sources above; Coral Reef Diagnostics has no coral cover estimate of its own at this site.

© Coral Reef Diagnostics.