South Padre Island, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 16.5 miles north of South Padre Island, TX
The coast 16.5 miles north of South Padre Island, TX has been retreating at a measured 3.17 feet a year, USGS's own long-term rate for this stretch, built from historical shoreline positions rather than a single survey. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 31.7 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
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 South Padre Island, TX. Centered near 26.35°N, 97.23°W. The survey behind it runs to 2001, in USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
25 years at this rate
If 3.17 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 16.5 miles north of South Padre Island, TX would retreat roughly 79 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 96 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±1.32 ft/yr. This segment ranks 91 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Port Arthur, TX, 306 miles away, ranks 43 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 5.97 ft/yr, 1.9x this stretch's rate. 1.8 miles away, South Padre Island, TX is the nearest other measured stretch: severe erosion at 3.26 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just South Padre Island itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.