Eastern Goleta Valley, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 2 miles south of Eastern Goleta Valley, CA
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 2 miles south of Eastern Goleta Valley, CA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
The grain of this number
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Eastern Goleta Valley, CA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 34.42, -119.80. The survey behind it runs to 1852-2016, in USGS's California 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.
Where this fits nationally
86 transects feed this segment's number; 84% of them individually measured retreat. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.15 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, -0.08 ft/yr, would place it 681 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Costa Mesa, CA sits at national rank 1140 for growth (1.48 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 118 miles from here. 2.7 miles away, Santa Barbara, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Eastern Goleta Valley itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.