Ilwaco, WA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 2 miles southwest of Ilwaco, WA
Unusual good news for this stretch: the shoreline 2 miles southwest of Ilwaco, WA has grown by a measured 5.01 feet a year on average, per USGS's long-term transect data for this section. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 50.1 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
Ilwaco, WA is the nearest named place, 2 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: 46.30, -124.06. Survey years: 2002-2011, method LRR, from USGS's Pacific Northwest 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 5.01 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 5.01 ft/yr accretion rate 2 miles southwest of Ilwaco, WA for 25 years would add roughly 125 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
How solid is this number
81 transects feed this segment's number; 6% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 3.66 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 1198. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2012-1008. Rank 942 nationally for growth belongs to Carpinteria, CA, 860 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.23 ft/yr, a small fraction of this stretch's own rate. 1.7 miles away, Ilwaco, WA is the nearest other measured stretch: severe erosion at 6.42 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Ilwaco itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.