Fort Hunter Liggett, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 13.9 miles west of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 13.9 miles west of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.4 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 4 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Fort Hunter Liggett, CA is the nearest named place, 13.9 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: 35.93, -121.47. 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.
What 0.4 ft/yr means over time
Run 13.9 miles west of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA's 0.4 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 10 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
How solid is this number
9 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.17 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 354. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Rank 515 nationally for erosion belongs to Point Arena, CA, 236 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.19 ft/yr, 0.5x this stretch's rate. Fort Hunter Liggett, CA, 1.7 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.46 ft/yr.
Fort Hunter Liggett, CA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.