Golden Meadow, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 23.9 miles southwest of Golden Meadow, LA?
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 23.9 miles southwest of Golden Meadow, LA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What this reading actually covers
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 Golden Meadow, LA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 29.07, -90.44. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
How solid is this number
48 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±7.89 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, -7.15 ft/yr, would place it 35 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 Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 975 nationally for growth belongs to Cinco Bayou, FL, 248 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.34 ft/yr. Golden Meadow, LA, 1.4 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
One address near Golden Meadow: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.