Marine park · Western Australia

Ningaloo Marine Park

Facts about this park from CAPAD 2024 and the world data on Biohotspot. Each figure is computed from the dataset named beside it; a figure that is missing or fails a check is left out.

Area: 2,613 km²
IUCN category Ia: 33.4 %
Gazetted: 1987
Open layers with data: 218

The park

Ningaloo covers 2,613 km².CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
CAPAD 2024 holds 80 records for this park.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
It has 31 named zones.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
33.4 % of the park (873 km²) is in zones of IUCN category Ia, strict nature reserve.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
CAPAD lists it as Marine Park.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
Its managing authority in CAPAD is WA_DBCA (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, WA).CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
It was gazetted in 1987 (CAPAD gazettal date).CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0

Area by IUCN category
IUCN category	km²	Share
II	1,685	64.5 %
Ia	873	33.4 %
IV	54.8	2.1 %

Named zones in CAPAD
Zone	IUCN	km²
General Use	II	1,309
Cloates Sanctuary Zone	Ia	447
Pelican Sanctuary Zone	Ia	109
Osprey Sanctuary Zone	Ia	95.0
Winderabandi Sanctuary Zone	Ia	55.2
Mandu Special Purpose Zone (Benthic Protection)	IV	54.8
Cape Farquhar Sanctuary Zone	Ia	47.7
Turtles Sanctuary Zone	Ia	24.4
Maud Sanctuary Zone	Ia	21.5
Mandu Sanctuary Zone	Ia	13.5
Mangrove Sanctuary Zone	Ia	11.3
Bateman Sanctuary Zone	Ia	11.1
Lighthouse Bay Sanctuary Zone	Ia	7.61
Jurabi Sanctuary Zone	Ia	7.52
Bundegi Sanctuary Zone	Ia	6.94
Gnaraloo Bay Sanctuary Zone	Ia	6.93
Murat Sanctuary Zone	Ia	4.89
3 Mile Sanctuary Zone	Ia	3.38
Cloates Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	2.09
Winderabandi Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	1.75
Pelican (north) Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.58
Lighthouse Bay Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.52
Tantabiddi Sanctuary Zone	Ia	0.50
Jurabi Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.46
Osprey (north) Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.37
Maud Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.35
Pelican (south) Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.32
Osprey (south) Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.22
Murat (south) Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.11
Lakeside Sanctuary Zone	Ia	0.08
Murat (north) Special Purpose Zone (Shore Based Activities)	II	0.08

Habitats and blue carbon

Global Mangrove Watch maps 24.6 ha of mangroves inside the park in 2020.Global Mangrove Watch v3 · CC BY
The modelled kelp forest biome covers none of the park.Jayathilake & Costello 2020 · CC BY 4.0
Sanderman et al. (2018) map 15,810 tonnes of carbon in the top metre of mangrove soil inside the park, 324 tonnes per hectare on average.Sanderman et al. 2018 · CC0 1.0

Pressures

Of the years 1985 to 2025, 2025 brought the most coral heat stress: averaged over the park, the year's highest Degree Heating Weeks reached 21.2 °C-weeks. NOAA counts 4 °C-weeks as bleaching likely and 8 as severe bleaching and mortality likely.NOAA Coral Reef Watch · Public domain
The 2013 cumulative human impact score (Halpern et al. 2015) averages 2.87 across the park, from 0.08 to 4.44.Halpern et al. 2015 · CC0 1.0

Data and research

218 of the 1,475 world map layers on Biohotspot with an open licence have data inside the park.
165 documents in the Biohotspot research library match the search “Ningaloo”.

Sources and licences

NOAA Coral Reef Watch, daily global 5 km satellite Degree Heating Week (v3.1), annual maxima 1985–2025 · NOAA Coral Reef Watch
Licence: Public domain (US Government work)
NOAA Coral Reef Watch. 2018, updated daily. NOAA Coral Reef Watch Version 3.1 Daily 5km Satellite Regional Virtual Station Time Series Data. College Park, Maryland, USA.
Cumulative human impacts: pressure and cumulative impacts data (2013, all pressures) · Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB)
Licence: CC0 1.0
Halpern, B., Frazier, M., Potapenko, J., Casey, K., Koenig, K., Longo, C., Lowndes, J., Rockwood, C., Selig, E., Selkoe, K., Walbridge, S. (2015) Cumulative human impacts: pressure and cumulative impacts data (2013, all pressures). KNB. doi:10.5063/F15718ZN. Associated paper: Halpern et al. 2015, 'Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world's ocean' (no formal citation string given in the metadata).
Modelled Global Distribution of the Kelp Biome · UNEP-WCMC Ocean Data Viewer (hosting); University of Auckland / Nord University authors
Licence: CC BY 4.0
Jayathilake D.R.M., Costello M.J. 2020. A modelled global distribution of the kelp biome. Biological Conservation 252, 108815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108815 (v2: Jayathilake & Costello 2021, Biological Conservation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109099)
Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) · UNEP-WCMC / Zenodo
Licence: CC BY (UNEP WESR catalogue entry); not stated on the UNEP-WCMC resources page or the Zenodo v3 page
Bunting, P.; Rosenqvist, A.; Hilarides, L.; Lucas, R.M.; Thomas, T.; Tadono, T.; Worthington, T.A.; Spalding, M.; Murray, N.J.; Rebelo, L-M. Global Mangrove Extent Change 1996 - 2020: Global Mangrove Watch Version 3.0. Remote Sensing. 2022.
Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024 – Marine · Australian Government, DCCEEW
Licence: CC BY 4.0
Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (2025). Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024 – Marine.
Global mangrove soil carbon, 0–100 cm (100 m mosaic) · Woods Hole Research Center / The Nature Conservancy
Licence: CC0 1.0
Sanderman J. et al. (2018) A global map of mangrove forest soil carbon at 30 m spatial resolution. Environ. Res. Lett. 13 055002. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aabe1c

A park here is the CAPAD 2024 Marine zones that share a name and a state. Habitat areas are the habitat maps’ polygons inside the park; carbon, heat stress and human impact are the map cells that touch it. Only sources with an open licence are used. Computed on 2026-10-27.