where P = expected anthropogenic pressure, C = rating for criteria 1 to n, W = weighting assigned to criteria 1 to n.
The expert opinions on criterion weight were collected by inter-view. Apart from confirming the appropriateness of criteria, the ex-perts were asked to rate each criterion in terms of its likely effect on coral communities from one to ten (one is least and ten is most impact). From their rating, quantity and quality of sewage outfall or probable pollutant inputs were allocated the highest weighting and considered to be the most important factor determining ex-pected anthropogenic pressure. These were followed by level of human activity, background turbidity, and finally depth of the study bays (Table 1). Upon calculating the expected anthropogenic pressure, sites with an expected anthropogenic pressure greater than 3.00 were classified as polluted (Table 2).