Timor-Leste is a developing country with limited infrastructure following decades of war and 
The aims of the present study were two-fold. The first was to investigate the state and health of tabulate Acroporids with white skeleton abutting live tissue with exposed skeleton gradually 188 colonized by turf algae, b) bleaching, c) flatworm infestation, and d) turf algae overgrowth. See Figure   189 A1 for other compromised states and Table A3 for more information.
190 
Benthic community composition and coral cover varied significantly between site, depth, and
year and there was a trend of rural sites having more live coral; however, a greater number of sites Figure 5 ). Overall, hard coral cover was higher at rural sites (37.3 ± 5.3%) than urban sites 285 (12.9 ± 3.8%).
Although 51 genera were found across the four sites, few genera dominated the reef, namely 
There was also a significant site and year interaction for coral community structure (repeated 
All other sites averaged less than five Acroporid colonies per transect for both morphologies.
Overall, the majority of hard corals at sites surveyed appeared healthy. Those categorized as 332 "healthy" made up 65.7 ± 1.70% of corals surveyed averaged over both years with low (< 1%) 333 prevalence of diseases. There were no clear distinctions between rural and urban sites. In 2015, there 334 was 0.9 ± 0.2% prevalence of WS at Rural-N with 61.9% of total disease found on Acropora sp. Rural-
N also had the highest prevalence of GAs the same year with 0.6 ± 0.2%. There was one case of 336 unconfirmed Trematodiasis, which requires microscopic confirmation of the larval trematode.
Disease prevalence was lower in 2017 with the highest prevalence of WS at Rural-N again (0.5 ± 0.1%) 338 but, Urban-W had the most GAs (0.6 ± 0.3%). All cases of WS were documented on Acroporids in 339 2017 while GAs were less host-specific found on nine genera across both years. The prevalence of 340 compromised health was much higher than diseases with an average of 37.4 ± 3.9% across sites and 341 years ( Figure 5 ). 
Comparison of the monthly mean of all in situ loggers and CRWTL monthly temperature mean was 402 significantly different by a season and site interaction (two-way ANOVA: F(3,53) = 3.92, p = 0.0100).
The CRWTL 5 km satellite-derived SST was significantly higher than the in situ logger data during 
There was a three-way interaction between site, depth, and year on bleaching prevalence 420 (repeated measures ANOVA, χ 2 = 18.6709, p = 0.03; p < 0.05; Figure 5 ). All sites at the same depth 421 showed a decrease in the prevalence of coral bleaching between surveys, which is expected as the 
Temperature likely has a negligible influence on community composition as the temperature logger 465 data was consistent between the three sites where loggers were successfully retrieved, Rural-N,
Rural-E, and Urban-W (Figure 7) . This leads us to localized human impacts as a key source of impact 467 on coral reefs.
Fishing is playing an increasingly significant role in 
While distance to river is a sensible explanation between community-level differences between Rural- 
The stable isotope data were consistent across sites and depths sampled (range 2. coral cover as much as 58.2 ± 6.4%. The concern, however, is that sites close to the urban areas of the 
The human population density of sites did not directly correlate with the condition of coral reefs.
The only consistent presence of infectious coral disease was found only at a rural site with low human 686 population density. Other signs of compromised coral health such as algal overgrowth, burrowing 687 barnacles, etc. were much more widespread across all sites. The underlying differences in coral 688 community structure were key to the prevalence of WS on tabulate Acroporids which may have been shaped by human impacts such as subsistence livelihoods and degradation of watersheds. There 690 were two lines of evidence at local scales, temperature, and nutrients (both seawater concentrations 691 and algal δ 15 N signatures), that indicated upwelling is a significant feature influencing the shallow 692 reefs of the north coast of Timor-Leste. This upwelling appears to lessen the impact and length of 693 bleaching events, although more research across larger spatial and temporal scales is necessary.
While it is fortunate the mass bleaching event did not cause large scale coral mortality in Timor-Leste,
the sublethal effects pose another threat to already highly impacted reefs.
Over 300 million people rely on coastal resources for economic livelihoods and cultural practices 