Dulac, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 24.9 miles south of Dulac, LA
The coast 24.9 miles south of Dulac, LA has been retreating at a measured 14.91 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 149.1 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
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 Dulac, LA. Centered near 29.06°N, 90.81°W. Survey years: 2001, method LRR, from USGS's Gulf of Mexico 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.
25 years at this rate
If 14.91 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 24.9 miles south of Dulac, LA would retreat roughly 373 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 56 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 5.42 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 12 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Sargent, TX sits at national rank 71 for erosion (4.11 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 286 miles from here. Dulac, LA, 1.4 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading severe erosion at 13.82 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Dulac itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.