Laguna Beach, FL Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 7.2 miles northwest of Laguna Beach, FL?
7.2 miles northwest of Laguna Beach, FL: USGS's transects didn't pick up a trend here that beats the survey's own uncertainty. That's the majority case nationally, and for this stretch specifically it means the coast is holding, not that the data failed to find anything.
What this reading actually covers
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 Laguna Beach, FL. Centered near 30.32°N, 86.05°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.
Where this fits nationally
93 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.58 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.26 ft/yr reading would land it 429 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: Seal Beach, CA, 1885 miles away, ranks 1072 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.73 ft/yr. Laguna Beach, FL, 1.7 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Laguna Beach itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.