Bertsch-Oceanview, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 6.6 miles south of Bertsch-Oceanview, CA?
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 6.6 miles south of Bertsch-Oceanview, CA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.34 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 3.4 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
Bertsch-Oceanview, CA is the nearest named place, 6.6 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 41.66, -124.13. The survey behind it runs to 1852-2016, in USGS's California assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
What 0.34 ft/yr means over time
Run 6.6 miles south of Bertsch-Oceanview, CA's 0.34 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 9 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
How solid is this number
Averaging 33 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.21 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 384. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Green Harbor, MA sits at national rank 327 for erosion (0.44 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2706 miles from here. 1.8 miles up the coast, Klamath, CA shows 0.44 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just Bertsch-Oceanview itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.