Pacifica, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 1.5 miles west of Pacifica, CA
The coast 1.5 miles west of Pacifica, CA has been retreating at a measured 0.6 feet a year, USGS's own long-term rate for this stretch, built from historical shoreline positions rather than a single survey. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 6 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
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 Pacifica, CA. Centered near 37.60°N, 122.50°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.
25 years at this rate
If 0.6 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 1.5 miles west of Pacifica, CA would retreat roughly 15 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
Where this fits nationally
67 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.25 ft/yr. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 270 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Rank 538 nationally for erosion belongs to Scituate, MA, 2721 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.17 ft/yr, 0.3x this stretch's rate. 3.2 miles away, Colma, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.48 ft/yr.
One address near Pacifica: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.