Gulf Breeze, FL Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 2.1 miles southwest of Gulf Breeze, FL
The coast 2.1 miles southwest of Gulf Breeze, FL has been retreating at a measured 0.93 feet a year, USGS's own long-term rate for this stretch, built from historical shoreline positions rather than a single survey. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 9.3 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
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 Gulf Breeze, FL. Centered near 30.35°N, 87.20°W. 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.
25 years at this rate
If 0.93 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 2.1 miles southwest of Gulf Breeze, FL would retreat roughly 23 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 102 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.65 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 205 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 156 nationally for erosion belongs to Guadalupe, CA, 1963 miles from this stretch, measured at 1.54 ft/yr, 1.7x this stretch's rate. 3 miles up the coast, Gulf Breeze, FL shows 0.54 ft/yr of eroding.
One address near Gulf Breeze: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.