Hurlburt Field, FL Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 1.9 miles west of Hurlburt Field, FL?
The coast 1.9 miles west of Hurlburt Field, FL 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.
What "Hurlburt Field" means on this page
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Hurlburt Field, FL into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 30.42°N, 86.75°W. 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 backs this reading up
This reading comes from 94 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.38 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.16 ft/yr reading would land it 548 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Margate City, NJ, 927 miles away, ranks 1076 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.8 ft/yr. 3 miles away, Hurlburt Field, FL is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
One address near Hurlburt Field: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.