Los Osos, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 3.1 miles west of Los Osos, CA?
3.1 miles west of Los Osos, CA: 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.
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 Los Osos, CA. Centered near 35.30°N, 120.88°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 36 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 83% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.4 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.06 ft/yr reading would land it 704 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. Ilwaco, WA sits at national rank 1198 for growth (5.01 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 778 miles from here. 1.3 miles away, Los Osos, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
One address near Los Osos: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.