Cayucos, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 4.6 miles west of Cayucos, CA
The coast 4.6 miles west of Cayucos, CA has been retreating at a measured 0.37 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 3.7 feet over the last decade.
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 Cayucos, CA. Centered near 35.46°N, 120.97°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 0.37 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 4.6 miles west of Cayucos, CA would retreat roughly 9 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
Averaging 9 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 89% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.19 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 366. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Rank 119 nationally for erosion belongs to Henlopen Acres, DE, 2512 miles from this stretch, measured at 2.23 ft/yr, 6.0x this stretch's rate. 4.4 miles up the coast, Cayucos, CA shows the same lack of a significant trend.
One address near Cayucos: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.