Buras, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 8.3 miles southwest of Buras, LA?
8.3 miles southwest of Buras, LA: USGS's transects didn't pick up a trend here that beats the survey's own uncertainty. That's the majority case nationally, and for this stretch specifically it means the coast is holding, not that the data failed to find anything.
What this reading actually covers
This is a roughly 3.5-mile stretch of coast, not one address or parcel - USGS's own transects run every few hundred feet, but that's finer than any one property needs, so this page reports the stretch nearest Buras, LA. Centered near 29.30°N, 89.65°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.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 25 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 7.08 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -1.73 ft/yr reading would land it 145 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: Ocean City, WA, 2214 miles away, ranks 1192 of 1211 nationally for growth, 4.1 ft/yr. 2.2 miles away, Buras, LA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
One address near Buras: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.