San Simeon, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 4.1 miles northwest of San Simeon, CA
The coast 4.1 miles northwest of San Simeon, CA shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
The grain of this number
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest San Simeon, CA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 35.65°N, 121.20°W. Survey years: 1852-2016, method LRR, from USGS's California shoreline-change assessment. That's how current the data is here, real, but not a live feed, since a shoreline survey is a major undertaking, not an annual check-in.
How solid is this number
Averaging 50 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 54% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.48 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.02 ft/yr reading would land it 753 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Point Lookout, NY sits at national rank 1194 for growth (4.23 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2581 miles from here. 2 miles away, San Simeon, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just San Simeon itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.