Shelter Cove, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 6.7 miles southeast of Shelter Cove, CA?
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 6.7 miles southeast of Shelter Cove, CA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.65 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 6.5 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
Shelter Cove, CA is the nearest named place, 6.7 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: 39.96, -123.98. 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 0.65 ft/yr means over time
Run 6.7 miles southeast of Shelter Cove, CA's 0.65 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 16 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 24 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.4 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 250 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. For scale: Bliss Corner, MA, 2731 miles away, ranks 525 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 0.18 ft/yr, 0.3x this stretch's rate. 1.6 miles away, Shelter Cove, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.79 ft/yr.
One address near Shelter Cove: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.