Castroville, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 2.9 miles west of Castroville, CA
2.9 miles west of Castroville, CA: 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 Castroville, CA. Centered near 36.75°N, 121.80°W. Survey years: 1852-2016, method LRR, from USGS's California 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
113 transects feed this segment's number; 11% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.76 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.35 ft/yr reading would land it 984 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Rank 942 nationally for growth belongs to Carpinteria, CA, 212 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.23 ft/yr. 3.5 miles up the coast, Marina, CA shows 0.72 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just Castroville itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.