Jamaica Beach, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 7.6 miles southwest of Jamaica Beach, TX
The coast 7.6 miles southwest of Jamaica Beach, TX has been retreating at a measured 0.62 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 6.2 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
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 Jamaica Beach, TX. Centered near 29.14°N, 95.09°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 0.62 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 7.6 miles southwest of Jamaica Beach, TX would retreat roughly 16 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
Where this fits nationally
Averaging 69 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.54 ft/yr. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 256 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 224 nationally for erosion belongs to Kahuku, HI, 3912 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.79 ft/yr, 1.3x this stretch's rate. Jamaica Beach, TX, 2 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.