Goleta, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 3.2 miles west of Goleta, CA
3.2 miles west of Goleta, CA: USGS's transects didn't pick up a trend here that beats the survey's own uncertainty. That's the majority case nationally, and for this stretch specifically it means the coast is holding, not that the data failed to find anything.
What "Goleta" means on this page
This is a roughly 3.5-mile stretch of coast, not one address or parcel - USGS's own transects run every few hundred feet, but that's finer than any one property needs, so this page reports the stretch nearest Goleta, CA. Centered near 34.43°N, 119.92°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.
What backs this reading up
39 transects feed this segment's number; 92% of them individually measured retreat. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.45 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.1 ft/yr reading would land it 655 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. Rank 1194 nationally for growth belongs to Point Lookout, NY, 2547 miles from this stretch, measured at 4.23 ft/yr. 1.7 miles away, Isla Vista, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
One address near Goleta: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.