The Great Barrier Reef has been hit in parts by coral bleaching, cyclone damage and flooding over summer – but many reefs remain in good condition with teams on the water to protect and survey the living wonder.

The Reef snapshot: Summer 2025-26, published today, shows pressures included prolonged heat exposure, cyclones and flood plumes across parts of the Marine Park, particularly in the Northern and Far Northern regions.

In response, scientists, tourism operators, Traditional Owners and Reef managers are surveying impacted reefs, protecting high-value sites and supporting recovery, with the full extent of impacts still being assessed.

Reef Authority Chief Scientist Dr Roger Beeden said the summer had delivered a series of compounding pressures to the Reef, but the picture along the 2,300km ecosystem was far from uniform.

• “Parts of the Reef experienced a combination of heat stress, cyclone impacts, flooding and crown-of-thorns starfish pressure over summer,” Dr Beeden said.

“The Great Barrier Reef is a vast and highly diverse ecosystem – with more than 3000 individual reefs stretching across an area the size of Japan – and conditions can differ dramatically from reef to reef.”

The Reef snapshot identifies a regional coral bleaching event in the Northern region, with localised low levels of bleaching in the Far Northern, Central and Southern regions. The bleaching in the Northern region became apparent in March 2026 after prolonged heat exposure over summer.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle crossed the Far Northern region in March as a category 5 system, generating sustained high wave action for more than 24 hours. Preliminary observations have identified wave damage to coral reefs surveyed between Cairns and Lizard Island. Tropical Cyclone Koji crossed the Marine Park’s Central region in January, bringing heavy rainfall and river flood plumes.

Dr Beeden said coral bleaching did not necessarily lead to coral mortality.

• “Bleaching is a stress response, and recovery is possible where conditions improve in time,” he said.

“That capacity to bounce back is one of the defining strengths of the Great Barrier Reef.

Crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks persist across the Marine Park, with the most severe activity in the Northern and Southern regions. The Reef Authority’s control program continues targeted surveillance and systematic culling to protect coral cover on high-value reefs.

The Reef Authority and partners are continuing survey work to assess impacts to reefs and islands, particularly between Cooktown and Lockhart River, where damage from Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle and prolonged heat exposure is expected to be highest.

The Reef Authority also issued a temporary management authorisation to about 875 tourism operators and Traditional Owners to help speed recovery at reefs impacted by Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle.

This allowed permit holders to “flip and re-attach” damaged coral for a month after the March 20 cyclone where quick action including turning over live coral colonies and reattaching freshly broken fragments can improve coral survival.The Reef snapshot is a joint initiative of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and CSIRO.

It focuses solely on coral and provides a point-in-time summary of environmental conditions and major disturbances across the Reef from December 2025 to mid-March 2026.

The full extent of cumulative impacts, including findings from a scientific voyage to far northern reefs, will be collated into detailed reports to be released later in 2026.

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Contact: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Media Hotline: (07) 4750 0846 | media@gbrmpa.gov.au