Laguna Beach, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 3.1 miles south of Laguna Beach, CA?
The coast 3.1 miles south 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.
What "Laguna Beach" means on this page
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 33.50°N, 117.75°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.
Where this fits nationally
Averaging 87 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 30% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.25 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.09 ft/yr reading would land it 849 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 1119 nationally for growth belongs to Chincoteague, VA, 2379 miles from this stretch, measured at 1.09 ft/yr. Dana Point, CA, 2 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight accretion (beach growing) at 0.44 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Laguna Beach itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.