Scotia, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 16.2 miles southwest of Scotia, CA
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 16.2 miles southwest of Scotia, CA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
The grain of this number
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 Scotia, CA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 40.35, -124.36. 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.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 117 individual transects averaged together, 18% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.35 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, 0.16 ft/yr, would place it 897 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Brigantine, NJ sits at national rank 1166 for growth (2.23 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2614 miles from here. 2.5 miles up the coast, Ferndale, CA shows 0.26 ft/yr of accreting.
Not this whole stretch, just Scotia itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.