Laguna Beach, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 2.1 miles west of Laguna Beach, CA
The coast 2.1 miles west of Laguna Beach, CA 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 Laguna Beach, CA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 33.55°N, 117.80°W. USGS's California assessment last surveyed this stretch through 1852-2016, 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.
How solid is this number
92 transects feed this segment's number; 71% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.18 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.08 ft/yr reading would land it 678 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Rank 1109 nationally for growth belongs to Cortez, FL, 2123 miles from this stretch, measured at 1.02 ft/yr. 1.9 miles away, Laguna Beach, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
One address near Laguna Beach: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.