CORAL REEFS QUANTITATIVELY ASSESSMENT ALONG THE EGYPTIAN RED SEA COAST

Coral assessment and distribution have been studied along the Egyptian Red Sea coast from north Hurghada with 5km to Shalateen illustrating the most important factors that affect the coral distribution and abundance at the selected sites. The cover percentage of the coral reef community was estimated at each locality by using the standard method (the line intercept transect. During the present investigation, 68 coral species were recorded at seven coastal sites along the Egyptian Red Sea; forty-nine species of them were hard corals and the other 19 species were soft corals. North Hurghada site (NIOF) recorded the least cover of the living coral (66.23%) while Abu-Dabab area recorded the maximum coverage percent (91.50%). In spite NIOF site recorded the least cover, it measured the maximum species diversity (3.54) due to the maximum recorded number of species (48 species); while Shalateen recorded the least diversity (1.97) due to the least number of coral species (24 species). The highest hard coral cover Pocillopora damicornis (15.6%) at El Sharm El-Bahari and the highest soft coral is Sarcophyton glaucum (10.18%) at North Qula'an. Some environmental characteristic variations and biological interaction between benthos, the anthropogenic activities, overfishing, tourism developments, as well as petroleum and phosphate production, Sedimentation processes, bottom topography and geomorphology are the main controlling factors of coral distribution at the studied areas.