Shelter Cove, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 8.7 miles northwest of Shelter Cove, CA
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 8.7 miles northwest of Shelter Cove, 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 Shelter Cove, CA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 40.13, -124.17. 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
Averaging 9 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 0% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.62 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, 0.23 ft/yr, would place it 940 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. Rank 958 nationally for growth belongs to Moss Landing, CA, 263 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.27 ft/yr. 1.4 miles away, Shelter Cove, CA is the nearest other measured stretch: also 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.