Shelter Cove, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 13 miles northwest of Shelter Cove, CA?
13 miles northwest of Shelter Cove, CA: USGS's transects didn't pick up a trend here that beats the survey's own uncertainty. That's the majority case nationally, and for this stretch specifically it means the coast is holding, not that the data failed to find anything.
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 Shelter Cove, CA. Centered near 40.17°N, 124.23°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.
What backs this reading up
24 transects feed this segment's number; 38% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.48 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.03 ft/yr reading would land it 800 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. For scale: Santa Monica, CA, 527 miles away, ranks 932 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.21 ft/yr. Shelter Cove, CA, 1.7 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Shelter Cove itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.