Gulf Shores, AL Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 1.4 miles south of Gulf Shores, AL
The coast 1.4 miles south of Gulf Shores, AL shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
The grain of this number
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Gulf Shores, AL into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 30.26°N, 87.70°W. Survey years: 2001, method LRR, from USGS's Gulf of Mexico 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.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 96 individual transects averaged together, 61% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.87 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.07 ft/yr reading would land it 682 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Gearhart, OR sits at national rank 1167 for growth (2.24 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2223 miles from here. 3 miles up the coast, Gulf Shores, AL shows the same lack of a significant trend.
One address near Gulf Shores: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.