Pescadero, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 9.2 miles south of Pescadero, CA?
The coast 9.2 miles south of Pescadero, CA has been retreating at a measured 1.13 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 11.3 feet over the last decade.
What "Pescadero" means on this page
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 Pescadero, CA. Centered near 37.12°N, 122.33°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 1.13 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 9.2 miles south of Pescadero, CA would retreat roughly 28 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
What backs this reading up
Averaging 47 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 98% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.43 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 190. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Rank 149 nationally for erosion belongs to Atlantic, VA, 2543 miles from this stretch, measured at 1.68 ft/yr, 1.5x this stretch's rate. 2.5 miles away, Pescadero, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.45 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Pescadero itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.