Montecito, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 1 miles west of Montecito, CA?
1 miles west of Montecito, 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 "Montecito" 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 Montecito, CA. Centered near 34.42°N, 119.65°W. USGS's California assessment last surveyed this stretch through 1852-2016, 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.
Where this fits nationally
66 transects feed this segment's number; 44% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.12 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.01 ft/yr reading would land it 788 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. Rank 1038 nationally for growth belongs to Sarita, TX, 1408 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.58 ft/yr. 2.4 miles away, Santa Barbara, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Montecito itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.