Corpus Christi, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 11.7 miles south of Corpus Christi, TX?
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 11.7 miles south of Corpus Christi, TX, the shoreline has been moving inland at 1.38 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 13.8 feet over the last decade.
What "Corpus Christi" means on this page
Corpus Christi, TX is the nearest named place, 11.7 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: 27.59, -97.24. The survey behind it runs to 2001, in USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
What 1.38 ft/yr means over time
Run 11.7 miles south of Corpus Christi, TX's 1.38 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 35 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 89 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.59 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 169 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Ipswich, MA, 1811 miles away, ranks 432 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 0.26 ft/yr, 0.2x this stretch's rate. Corpus Christi, TX, 1.9 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Corpus Christi itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.