Seal Beach, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 2.2 miles south of Seal Beach, CA
2.2 miles south of Seal Beach, CA, the coast is advancing, not retreating, at a measured 0.63 feet a year, sediment accumulating faster than any erosion USGS recorded here. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 6.3 feet over the last decade.
What "Seal Beach" means on this page
Seal Beach, CA is the nearest named place, 2.2 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 33.72, -118.08. 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.
What 0.63 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 0.63 ft/yr accretion rate 2.2 miles south of Seal Beach, CA for 25 years would add roughly 16 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 15 individual transects averaged together, 0% of which measured erosion rather than growth. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.4 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 1053. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. Dana Point, CA sits at national rank 1006 for growth (0.44 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 26 miles from here. 1.8 miles away, Seal Beach, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight accretion (beach growing) at 0.73 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Seal Beach itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.