Matagorda, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 10.1 miles east of Matagorda, TX
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 10.1 miles east of Matagorda, TX, the shoreline has been moving inland at 1.74 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 17.4 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
Matagorda, TX is the nearest named place, 10.1 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 28.70, -95.80. Survey years: 2001, method LRR, from USGS's Gulf of Mexico shoreline-change assessment. That's how current the data is here, real, but not a live feed, since a shoreline survey is a major undertaking, not an annual check-in.
What 1.74 ft/yr means over time
Run 10.1 miles east of Matagorda, TX's 1.74 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 44 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 114 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.63 ft/yr. This segment ranks 144 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Bodega Bay, CA sits at national rank 442 for erosion (0.25 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1694 miles from here. 2.5 miles up the coast, Matagorda, TX shows 0.61 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just Matagorda itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.