Matagorda, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 8.9 miles southwest of Matagorda, TX
The coast 8.9 miles southwest of Matagorda, TX 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 "Matagorda" 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 Matagorda, TX into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 28.59°N, 96.05°W. The survey behind it runs to 2001, in USGS's Gulf of Mexico 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
This reading comes from 106 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.77 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.72 ft/yr reading would land it 238 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Camp Pendleton South, CA, 1309 miles away, ranks 1005 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.44 ft/yr. 2.1 miles away, Matagorda, TX is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.75 ft/yr.
One address near Matagorda: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.