Buellton, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 12 miles southwest of Buellton, CA?
USGS's shoreline-change data puts this stretch, 12 miles southwest of Buellton, CA, at 0.13 feet of erosion a year on average, a long-term rate for this specific ~3.5-mile section, not one storm's damage. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 1.3 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
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 Buellton, CA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 34.47, -120.30. USGS's California assessment last surveyed this stretch through 1852-2016, 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 0.13 ft/yr means over time
Run 12 miles southwest of Buellton, CA's 0.13 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 3 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
What backs this reading up
Averaging 84 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 95% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.12 ft/yr. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 608 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Port Mansfield, TX sits at national rank 96 for erosion (2.99 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1478 miles from here. 2.7 miles away, Buellton, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.18 ft/yr.
One address near Buellton: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.