World Atlas of Coral Reefs
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Slide 10 of 15
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This map shows the bleaching impacts of this El Niño event.
- Deep blue dots - High >50% of corals observed to bleach
- Pale blue dots - Medium 10-50% of corals bleached
- Yellow dots - Low <10 of corals bleached.
- In the central Indian Ocean from the Maldives to the Seychelles - massive levels of bleaching became the largest mass-mortality event ever recorded.
- These three countries have some 5% of the world’s coral reefs and some 90% of their corals died.
- To get these figures in perspective it can be directly compared to forests. Europe has some 4% of the world’s forest ecosystems. Corals are in many ways the ecological equivalent to trees, to we might suggest that this is similar to Europe losing 90% of its trees.
- Recovery has now commenced on these reefs, but it will be many years without further impacts before such recovery will be complete.
- Most models point to sea temperatures reaching the thresholds for coral bleaching with increasing regularity - possibly every year within 30 years.
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Revision date: 05 March 2002 | Current date: 16 May 2008 |
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