Pacific Beach, WA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 1 miles south of Pacific Beach, WA
1 miles south of Pacific Beach, WA, the coast is advancing, not retreating, at a measured 0.95 feet a year, sediment accumulating faster than any erosion USGS recorded here. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 9.5 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Pacific Beach, WA is the nearest named place, 1 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 47.20, -124.20. The survey behind it runs to 2002-2011, in USGS's Pacific Northwest 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 0.95 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 0.95 ft/yr accretion rate 1 miles south of Pacific Beach, WA for 25 years would add roughly 24 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
How solid is this number
Averaging 109 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 2% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.43 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 1100 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2012-1008. Rank 1087 nationally for growth belongs to Sarita, TX, 2003 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.88 ft/yr, 0.9x this stretch's rate. 3.5 miles up the coast, Copalis Beach, WA shows 0.99 ft/yr of accreting.
Pacific Beach, WA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.