Orange Beach, AL Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 2.8 miles east of Orange Beach, AL
The coast 2.8 miles east of Orange Beach, AL 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 this reading actually covers
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Orange Beach, AL into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 30.29°N, 87.55°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.
Where this fits nationally
Averaging 74 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 1% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.73 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.64 ft/yr reading would land it 1054 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: Port O'Connor, TX, 556 miles away, ranks 1177 of 1211 nationally for growth, 2.77 ft/yr. 2.6 miles away, Orange Beach, AL is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.37 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Orange Beach itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.