Paia, HI Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 2.1 miles west of Paia, HI
0.44 feet a year: that is the measured retreat rate USGS's transects show for the coast 2.1 miles west of Paia, HI, averaged across the full historical record surveyed here. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 4.4 feet over the last decade.
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 Paia, HI into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 20.91°N, 156.40°W. USGS's Hawaii assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2007-2010, computing the rate with its WLR 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 0.44 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 2.1 miles west of Paia, HI would retreat roughly 11 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
Averaging 247 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 99% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.37 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 328 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2011-1009. For scale: Ilwaco, WA, 2524 miles away, ranks 39 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 6.42 ft/yr, many times over this stretch's own rate. 2.1 miles up the coast, Paia, HI shows 0.27 ft/yr of eroding.
Paia, HI on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.