Carmel Valley Village, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 16.7 miles southwest of Carmel Valley Village, CA?
The coast 16.7 miles southwest of Carmel Valley Village, CA has been retreating at a measured 0.61 feet a year, USGS's own long-term rate for this stretch, built from historical shoreline positions rather than a single survey. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 6.1 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
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 Carmel Valley Village, CA. Centered near 36.28°N, 121.86°W. 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.
25 years at this rate
If 0.61 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 16.7 miles southwest of Carmel Valley Village, CA would retreat roughly 15 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 54 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.34 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 264. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. South Bethany, DE sits at national rank 198 for erosion (0.98 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2546 miles from here. 2 miles away, Carmel Valley Village, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
One address near Carmel Valley Village: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.