Miramar Beach, FL Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 2.6 miles east of Miramar Beach, FL?
The coast 2.6 miles east of Miramar Beach, FL 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 "Miramar Beach" 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 Miramar Beach, FL into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 30.39°N, 86.30°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.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 95 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.59 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.14 ft/yr reading would land it 575 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: Fields Landing, CA, 2230 miles away, ranks 1085 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.85 ft/yr. 2.7 miles away, Miramar Beach, FL is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Miramar Beach itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.