Dulac, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 22.4 miles south of Dulac, LA
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 22.4 miles south of Dulac, LA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 7.19 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 71.9 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Dulac, LA is the nearest named place, 22.4 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: 29.08, -90.68. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, 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.
What 7.19 ft/yr means over time
Run 22.4 miles south of Dulac, LA's 7.19 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 180 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 26 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 4.54 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 34 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 317 nationally for erosion belongs to Casmalia, CA, 1793 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.46 ft/yr, a small fraction of this stretch's own rate. 1.1 miles up the coast, Dulac, LA shows 5.08 ft/yr of eroding.
Dulac, LA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.