Port Aransas, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 1.9 miles southwest of Port Aransas, TX?
1.9 miles southwest of Port Aransas, TX: USGS's transects didn't pick up a trend here that beats the survey's own uncertainty. That's the majority case nationally, and for this stretch specifically it means the coast is holding, not that the data failed to find anything.
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 Port Aransas, TX. Centered near 27.80°N, 97.11°W. The survey behind it runs to 2001, in USGS's Gulf of Mexico 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.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 128 individual transects averaged together, 58% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.93 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.22 ft/yr reading would land it 482 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Port St. Joe, FL, 730 miles away, ranks 1067 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.73 ft/yr. Corpus Christi, TX, 2.1 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.74 ft/yr.
One address near Port Aransas: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.