Sarita, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 25.2 miles east of Sarita, TX
The coast 25.2 miles east of Sarita, TX is actually gaining ground, not losing it: USGS's transects measure 1 feet of accretion a year here, sediment building up rather than washing away. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 10 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Sarita, TX, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 27.15, -97.39. 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.
What 1 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 1 ft/yr accretion rate 25.2 miles east of Sarita, TX for 25 years would add roughly 25 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
What backs this reading up
110 transects feed this segment's number; 0% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.43 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 1108 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Surfside Beach, TX, 180 miles away, ranks 1059 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.69 ft/yr, 0.7x this stretch's rate. Sarita, TX, 3.5 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Sarita itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.