Fort Hunter Liggett, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 14.8 miles west of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 14.8 miles west of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.52 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 5.2 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Fort Hunter Liggett, CA is the nearest named place, 14.8 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: 35.99, -121.50. 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 0.52 ft/yr means over time
Run 14.8 miles west of Fort Hunter Liggett, CA's 0.52 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 13 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
What backs this reading up
Averaging 23 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.27 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 296. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Rank 22 nationally for erosion belongs to Ilwaco, WA, 723 miles from this stretch, measured at 10.32 ft/yr, many times over this stretch's own rate. Fort Hunter Liggett, CA, 2.5 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Fort Hunter Liggett itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.