Fairhaven, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 1.9 miles southwest of Fairhaven, CA?
The coast 1.9 miles southwest of Fairhaven, CA shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
The grain of this number
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Fairhaven, CA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 40.77°N, 124.22°W. Survey years: 1852-2016, method LRR, from USGS's California 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.
How solid is this number
28 transects feed this segment's number; 4% of them individually measured retreat. The published margin on this reading runs ±2.09 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 1.71 ft/yr reading would land it 1149 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Carpinteria, CA sits at national rank 942 for growth (0.23 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 514 miles from here. 2.1 miles away, Fields Landing, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: accretion (beach growing) at 2.04 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Fairhaven itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.