Rancho Palos Verdes, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 1.7 miles west of Rancho Palos Verdes, CA?
The coast 1.7 miles west of Rancho Palos Verdes, CA has been retreating at a measured 0.13 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 1.3 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 Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. Centered near 33.75°N, 118.40°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 0.13 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 1.7 miles west of Rancho Palos Verdes, CA would retreat roughly 3 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
60 transects feed this segment's number; 72% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.13 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 609 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. South Padre Island, TX sits at national rank 89 for erosion (3.26 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1363 miles from here. Palos Verdes Estates, CA, 2.7 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.16 ft/yr.
One address near Rancho Palos Verdes: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.