Gulf Breeze, FL Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 1.7 miles southeast of Gulf Breeze, FL
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 1.7 miles southeast of Gulf Breeze, FL, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.54 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 5.4 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Gulf Breeze, FL is the nearest named place, 1.7 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: 30.36, -87.15. The survey behind it runs to 2001, in USGS's Gulf of Mexico 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 0.54 ft/yr means over time
Run 1.7 miles southeast of Gulf Breeze, FL's 0.54 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 14 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
100 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.52 ft/yr. This segment ranks 287 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Eastville, VA, 808 miles away, ranks 77 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 3.64 ft/yr, 6.7x this stretch's rate. 3 miles up the coast, Oriole Beach, FL shows the same lack of a significant trend.
Gulf Breeze, FL on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.