Morro Bay, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 1.6 miles south of Morro Bay, CA
1.6 miles south of Morro Bay, 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 "Morro Bay" 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 Morro Bay, CA. Centered near 35.34°N, 120.86°W. The survey behind it runs to 1852-2016, in USGS's California 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.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 84 individual transects averaged together, 4% of which measured erosion rather than growth. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.42 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.41 ft/yr reading would land it 1002 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. Newport Beach, CA sits at national rank 1098 for growth (0.94 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 207 miles from here. 2.1 miles away, Los Osos, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
Morro Bay, CA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.