Coronado, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 3.2 miles northwest of Coronado, CA?
3.2 miles northwest of Coronado, CA, the coast is advancing, not retreating, at a measured 2.04 feet a year, sediment accumulating faster than any erosion USGS recorded here. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 20.4 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
Coronado, CA is the nearest named place, 3.2 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 32.69, -117.20. 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 2.04 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 2.04 ft/yr accretion rate 3.2 miles northwest of Coronado, CA for 25 years would add roughly 51 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
How solid is this number
Averaging 94 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 0% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.68 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 1158. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Florence, OR sits at national rank 1077 for growth (0.8 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 864 miles from here. 1.7 miles away, Coronado, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: accretion (beach growing) at 1.69 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Coronado itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.