South Padre Island, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 1.6 miles southwest of South Padre Island, TX
The coast 1.6 miles southwest of South Padre Island, TX shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
What "South Padre Island" means on this page
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest South Padre Island, TX into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 26.10°N, 97.18°W. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, 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 backs this reading up
This reading comes from 102 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±3.33 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -2.57 ft/yr reading would land it 108 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. San Clemente, CA sits at national rank 980 for growth (0.34 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1315 miles from here. 2 miles up the coast, South Padre Island, TX shows the same lack of a significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just South Padre Island itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.