In the present study, an assessment of the status of
coral reefs along the Pongi Balu coast, south Andaman
Islands, which is a part of the Mahatma Gandhi
Marine National Park, has been made by scuba diving,
low draft glass-bottom boat and visual interpretation
in some places during low-tide condition. The
coral reef boundaries have been accurately determined
with the help of a low draft glass-bottom boat
fitted with a real time kinematics global positioning
system, and the existing coral reefs map of the area
has been updated using the geographic information
system technique. A total of 161.6 ha of previously existed
live coral reefs were surveyed along the Pongi
Balu coast and out of that ‘live coral’ was found over
81.4 ha and ‘dead coral’ was found over 60.6 ha
whereas 19.6 ha area was found to have been lost from
the existing coral reefs and categorized as ‘no coral’.
The study highlights a few natural and anthropogenic
factors affecting the existing coral reefs and hindering
the re-establishment of coral reefs in the study area
