Buras, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 7.2 miles southwest of Buras, LA?
The coast 7.2 miles southwest of Buras, LA shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
What this reading actually covers
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Buras, LA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 29.27°N, 89.59°W. Survey years: 2001, method LRR, from USGS's Gulf of Mexico shoreline-change assessment. That's how current the data is here, real, but not a live feed, since a shoreline survey is a major undertaking, not an annual check-in.
How solid is this number
Averaging 53 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 81% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 5.85 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.4 ft/yr reading would land it 347 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: San Clemente, CA, 1667 miles away, ranks 980 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.34 ft/yr. Buras, LA, 2.2 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Buras itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.