Olowalu, HI Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 0.8 miles southwest of Olowalu, HI?
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 0.8 miles southwest of Olowalu, HI, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What "Olowalu" means on this page
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Olowalu, HI, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 20.82, -156.63. The survey behind it runs to 2007-2010, in USGS's Hawaii assessment, using the WLR 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
73 transects feed this segment's number; 62% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.23 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, -0.06 ft/yr, would place it 699 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2011-1009. Seaside, OR sits at national rank 1155 for growth (1.99 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2534 miles from here. Olowalu, HI, 2 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
One address near Olowalu: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.