Pascagoula, MS Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 13.1 miles southeast of Pascagoula, MS
The coast 13.1 miles southeast of Pascagoula, MS has been retreating at a measured 5.28 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 52.8 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 Pascagoula, MS. Centered near 30.21°N, 88.42°W. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, 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 5.28 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 13.1 miles southeast of Pascagoula, MS would retreat roughly 132 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 33 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. USGS's confidence interval here is ±1.9 ft/yr. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 51 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 167 nationally for erosion belongs to Ferndale, CA, 2130 miles from this stretch, measured at 1.4 ft/yr, 0.3x this stretch's rate. Pascagoula, MS, 1.6 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading moderate erosion at 1.29 ft/yr.
Pascagoula, MS on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.