Malibu, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 4.1 miles west of Malibu, CA
4.1 miles west of Malibu, 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.
What "Malibu" means on this page
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 Malibu, CA. Centered near 34.02°N, 118.83°W. The survey behind it runs to 1852-2016, in USGS's California 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.
How solid is this number
Averaging 27 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 0% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.15 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.14 ft/yr reading would land it 889 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. For scale: Beach Haven, NJ, 2472 miles away, ranks 995 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.4 ft/yr. 1.6 miles up the coast, Malibu, CA shows the same lack of a significant trend.
Malibu, CA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.