Jamaica Beach, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 4.9 miles southwest of Jamaica Beach, TX?
0.6 feet a year: that is the measured retreat rate USGS's transects show for the coast 4.9 miles southwest of Jamaica Beach, TX, averaged across the full historical record surveyed here. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 6 feet over the last decade.
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 Jamaica Beach, TX into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 29.16°N, 95.05°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.
25 years at this rate
If 0.6 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 4.9 miles southwest of Jamaica Beach, TX would retreat roughly 15 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
How solid is this number
Averaging 109 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.54 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 266 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 395 nationally for erosion belongs to East Quogue, NY, 1500 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.32 ft/yr, 0.5x this stretch's rate. Jamaica Beach, TX, 1.9 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Jamaica Beach, TX on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.