Dulac, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 26.9 miles southwest of Dulac, LA?
8.13 feet a year: that is the measured retreat rate USGS's transects show for the coast 26.9 miles southwest of Dulac, LA, averaged across the full historical record surveyed here. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 81.3 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Dulac, LA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 29.07°N, 90.92°W. 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.
25 years at this rate
If 8.13 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 26.9 miles southwest of Dulac, LA would retreat roughly 203 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
How solid is this number
35 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 3.53 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 30 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Half Moon Bay, CA, 1900 miles away, ranks 372 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 0.36 ft/yr, a small fraction of this stretch's own rate. Dulac, LA, 0.9 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Dulac, LA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.