Apalachicola, FL Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 7.9 miles southwest of Apalachicola, FL
The coast 7.9 miles southwest of Apalachicola, FL is actually gaining ground, not losing it: USGS's transects measure 2.21 feet of accretion a year here, sediment building up rather than washing away. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 22.1 feet over the last decade.
What "Apalachicola" means on this page
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Apalachicola, FL, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 29.63, -85.07. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
What 2.21 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 2.21 ft/yr accretion rate 7.9 miles southwest of Apalachicola, FL for 25 years would add roughly 55 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 34 individual transects averaged together, 0% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.4 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 1163 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Chatham, MA, 1178 miles away, ranks 1203 of 1211 nationally for growth, 5.4 ft/yr, 2.4x this stretch's rate. 2 miles away, Apalachicola, FL is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
One address near Apalachicola: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.