Matagorda, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 12.3 miles southwest of Matagorda, TX
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 12.3 miles southwest of Matagorda, TX, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.54 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 5.4 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Matagorda, TX is the nearest named place, 12.3 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: 28.57, -96.11. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, 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.
What 0.54 ft/yr means over time
Run 12.3 miles southwest of Matagorda, TX's 0.54 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 14 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
Averaging 86 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.47 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 289. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Grand Isle, LA sits at national rank 38 for erosion (6.6 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 366 miles from here. 1.7 miles up the coast, Matagorda, TX shows 0.75 ft/yr of eroding.
One address near Matagorda: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.